“This superb book is a sophisticated, impressively wide ranging, and original

contribution to New Testament studies, and Pauline studies in particular. This

is no minor accomplishment in such a congested domain of research. But this
book is more. Besides exhibiting extraordinary command of the total scope of
relevant ancient data, it also provides imaginative analytic resources for theo-
logians working in more systematic modes. In disciplines so often bifurcated,
this book is a model of intellectual creativity—­and an enticement for theo-
logians to engage New Testament scholarship (and the ancient world more
broadly) with much greater seriousness.”
—­T. J. Lang, Senior Lecturer in New Testament, University of St Andrews
“This is an altogether convincing case for understanding how the Holy Spirit
is the means by which God joins his new covenant people to Christ. In devel-
oping his case, Song contends that God does not form a ‘third race’ but
enlarges his covenant assembly to include Gentiles by expanding the biblical
notion of sacred space, especially seen in Paul’s imagery of the temple. Jews
remain Jews both ethnically and culturally and Gentiles remain Gentiles, but
God unites them by the ‘one Spirit.’ In this carefully argued and well-­written
monograph, Song reveals some of the inadequacies of how certain schools of
thought on Paul (viz. the New Perspective, Paul within Judaism, and Apoca-
lyptic) have interpreted the role of the Spirit. This book thus provides some
carefully nuanced correctives to Pauline scholarship.”
—­Clinton E. Arnold, Research Professor of New Testament, Talbot
School of Theology, Biola University
“In One Spirit, Kris Song demonstrates how indispensable the unifying power
of the Spirit is to Paul’s gospel. He deftly works through various schools of
Pauline interpretation to elucidate how the Spirit enables both Jews and gen-
tiles to live together in the new messianic age. This is a must-­read for anyone
thinking about the role of the Spirit in Paul’s writings.”
—­M atthew Thiessen, Associate Professor of Religious Studies,
McMaster University, and author of Paul and the Gentile Problem
and A Jewish Paul
“One Spirit is an attempt to bring together Paul’s spatial understanding of
the Spirit in terms of the temple as ‘cultic space around the person of Christ’
where both Jews and Gentiles are brought together in unified worship of the
one Lord. The scope of the work is ambitious and wide-­ranging while at the
same time well-­ordered and judicious. The scholarly assessment of Paul’s view
of the Spirit has been both fractured and fractious, two shortcomings Song’s
work manages to avoid. This is a well-­conceived work that is a pleasure to
read. Song orders the conversation well and makes a contribution that will
need to be considered.”
—­Darian Lockett, Professor of New Testament, Talbot School of
Theology, Biola University
“This innovative book offers a compelling examination of Paul’s pneumatology
and its function in constructing unity among Christ-­followers in Corinth. Draw-
ing creatively on critical spatial theory, the study insightfully analyzes how the
Spirit brings cohesion, both relationally and spatially, without requiring the dis-
solution of Jewish and Gentile identities. This is a groundbreaking contribution
that provides sage perspective on unity, diversity, and supersessionism in early
Pauline thought.”
—­J. Brian Tucker, Dean of Faculty and Professor of New Testament,
Moody Theological Seminary
“‘For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,’ Paul says to the church
at Corinth. But how does he understand the Spirit establishing unity amid the
diversity composed of Jew and Gentile? In One Spirit, Kris Song suggests that
this unity occurs within a ‘cultic space around the person of Christ’ which allows
Jew and Gentile to flourish together—­as Jew and Gentile. Drawing on insights
from spatial theory, Song’s articulation of the pneuma discourse is both an inci-
sive contribution to Pauline pneumatology as well as a refreshing picture of
unity that our world—­and the church—­so desperately needs.”
—­Jeannine Hanger, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological
Studies, Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
“Eschewing articulations of Paul’s thought that imagine Jew and Gentile unity
in Christ as constituted by an ethnic or genealogical manipulation of the Spirit,
Kris Song contends that Paul understands this unity in spatial and relational
terms, since the Spirit mediates the presence of God. Instead of creating a
‘third race,’ the Spirit configures a ‘Thirdspace’ for Jews and Gentiles to retain
their differences as they are centered cultically on Christ in the worship of the
same God. One Spirit provides helpful correctives to the pneumatologies of
the major interpretative trends in Pauline scholarship, and it highlights what
1 Corinthians in particular can offer in response to several of the questions that
contemporary Pauline scholars more readily turn to Galatians and Romans to
address.”
—­John Anthony Dunne, Associate Professor of New Testament,
Bethel Seminary
“Judicious, cutting-­edge, learned, up to date, exegetically alert, and lucid.
These are words that come to mind as I seek to describe Kris Song’s One
Spirit. Perhaps most significantly, he reminds us that Paul’s pneuma language
is inflected profoundly by Christology and by ‘being in Christ.’ This means
that he can critically appraise purported parallels with Stoic language, thereby
offering an appropriate critique particularly of those approaches often (dubi-
ously?) labeled ‘Paul within Judaism.’ Though tightly focused on the issue
of Paul’s pneumatological discourse and ecclesial unity, there is much in this
volume to rethink wider and central debates relating to Pauline theology. This
is an important contribution to recent discussions concerning Pauline pneu-
matology, ecclesiology, and more besides.”
—­Chris Tilling, Head of Research and Senior Lecturer in New
Testament, St Mellitus College
 ONE
SPIRIT
Pneumatology and Unity in
the Corinthian Letters

KRIS SONG

BAYLOR UNIVERSITY PRESS

© 2024 by Baylor University Press
Waco, Texas 76798

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored

in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
permission in writing of Baylor University Press.

Cover and book design by Elyxandra Encarnación

Cover art: Pexels/Engin Akyurt

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Song, Kris, author.
Title: One spirit : pneumatology and unity in the Corinthian letters / Kris Song.
Description: Waco, Texas : Baylor University Press, [2024] | Includes
bibliographical references. | Summary: “An exegetical reconceptualization
of the concept of Christian unity in the Holy Spirit in Pauline thought”
-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2023045761 (print) | LCCN 2023045762 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781481321044 | ISBN 9781481321075 (adobe pdf) |
ISBN 9781481321068 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Holy Spirit. | Christian Union. | Paul, the Apostle, Saint.
Classification: LCC BT121.3 .S597 2024 (print) | LCC BT121.3 (ebook) |
DDC 231/.3--dc23/eng/20240329
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045761
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023045762
For my parents, Peter and Sunny Song
 Contents

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction 1
1.1. Introduction 1
1.2. Thesis Stated 3
1.3. Methodological Considerations 5
1.4. The Available Sources for the Pneuma 13
2 Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 15
2.1. Jewish Biblical and Extrabiblical Pneumatology
in Wide-­Angle Perspective 15
2.2. The Spirit and Divinity in Biblical and Extrabiblical
Jewish Literature 33
2.3. The Spirit of Divine Attributes in Qumran 41
2.4. Oneness, “Monotheism,” and Pneuma 44
2.5. Conclusions 48
3 Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 51
3.1. Stoic Pneumatology in Wide-­Angle Perspective 51
3.2. The Spirit and Divinity in Stoic Literature 54
3.3. Other Greco-­Roman Features of Pneuma 70
3.4. Conclusions 76
4 Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 79
4.1. Overview of 1 Corinthians—­Union, Fellowship, and
Relational Structures 81
4.2. Movement One: Christ as Temple in the Corinthian
Correspondence 92
4.3. Movement Two: The Spirit and the Temple in
First Corinthians 103
4.4. Conclusions 129

vii
 viii Contents

5 One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 131

5.1. Movement Three: Jewish and Gentile Unity in
One Spirit 131
5.2. Thirdspace and Not Third Race 154
5.3. Comparisons with Stoic and Greco-­Roman
Conceptions of Pneuma 157
5.4. Conclusions 160
6 One Spirit in Pauline Studies 163
6.1. Introduction 163
6.2. The New Perspective on Paul, Spiritual
Fulfillment, and Supersessionism 164
6.3. Paul within Judaism and the Ethnic Pneuma 170
6.4. The Apocalyptic Paul, Pneuma, and the Question
of Continuity 187
6.5. Conclusion: Synthesis and Proposals for Further
Engagement 197
7 Conclusions 205

Bibliography 217
Index of Subjects 249
Index of Authors 253
Index of Ancient Sources 257
 Acknowledgments

I am truly honored to have this manuscript published with Baylor

University Press. Dave Nelson helped get this whole process started
and I heartily thank him for his support and trust in this book. I am
also thankful for my wonderful partnership with Cade Jarrell and the
production team at Baylor, including Jenny Hunt, Paul Zetterberg,
John Morris, and Ely Encarnación. You all have been such a pleasure
to work with in bringing this book to print.
I am deeply grateful to Professor Grant Macaskill. Not only is this
book the providential beneficiary of his guidance and insight, but
I also am a better scholar and person for having worked under his
generous supervision. Within the University of Aberdeen commu-
nity, I wish to remember the late Howard Marshall, who was gra-
cious enough to read early versions of the project and memorably
recounted to me Aberdeen’s rich legacy of studies on the Holy Spirit.
To my Aberdonian cohort: Jeannine Hanger, Melissa Tan, and Lisa
Igram, I am so grateful for all of you and our meetings together. With
them, I thank Andrew and Jane Clarke, Markus Nikkanen, Ryan
Heinsch, Josh Honeycutt, Joe Lee, and Eric Russ.
I am particularly thankful to Clint Arnold, from whom I have
received an abundance of guidance and encouragement over many
years. It was Clint that helped set this path in motion in 2012, when
he told me that it was worth writing a dissertation on the “commu-
nity aspects of the Spirit.” Along with the rest of the community at
Talbot Seminary, I warmly thank Joe Hellerman, Moyer Hubbard,
Mike Wilkins, and Daniel Kim.

ix
 x Acknowledgments

There are a number of scholars and colleagues who influenced and

impacted the ideas formed in this book. I thank Katherine Hockey
and T. J. Lang for their valuable comments and guidance during their
examination of this material in its dissertation phase. Volker Rabens
was more than generous for taking an early interest in the project
and providing helpful dialogue and insight along the way. Matthew
Thiessen’s rich interaction with the book was gracious even in dis-
agreement, and I am grateful for him and his scholarship. I also thank
Erin Heim, Doug Harink, and Alexandra Brown for their helpful
exchange over portions of this material. John Dunne has been an
important collaborator and an even better friend throughout this
whole ordeal. Along with him, I warmly thank Chris Porter, Logan
Williams, Brandon Hurlbert, and the rest of the crew over at the Two
Cities and SLS.
I thank my entire family at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Orange,
California. For their prayers and encouragement during the long writ-
ing process, I particularly thank Darian Lockett, Eric Kapur, Isaac Blois,
Wilfred Hsu, Rob and Christina Cho, and Tim and Mandy Kong.
For their cherished friendship and their support, I thank Jack
Nguyen and Yula Chin. I also want to warmly thank Albert and Tina
Shim, Phil Kim, Ken Hsu, Joe Choi, Jimin Oh, and Mark Lee—­all
valued friends who each helped me in the writing process in their own
unique ways.
Without question, none of this was ever possible without the sup-
port and encouragement of my beloved parents, Peter and Sunny
Song. They have helped me in every phase of this journey, and I ded-
icate this book to them. The same is true for Kevin and Diane Koo,
my other parents whom I love and am deeply grateful for. Eray Kim,
thank you, brother. Finally, no number of words, poetic or otherwise,
can properly thank my wife, Melissa, for her laughter, wise counsel,
encouragement, graciousness, endurance of so much foolishness, and
loving friendship. I love you forever. As for Joshua, Christin, and
Matthew—­all that I have is yours along with all my love.
 1
Introduction

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—­Jews or

Greeks, slaves or free—­and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:13

1.1. Introduction
“One Spirit” names the unity the Apostle Paul sought to estab-
lish among the various strands of differences he hoped to join
together—­whether divine and human, Jewish and gentile, male and
female, or slave and free. But what kind of unity does the pneuma
actually establish in Pauline thought?1 The prevailing explanations in
Pauline studies have focused on the ethnicity of Jews and gentiles as
the main dividing obstacle that pneuma must somehow ontologically

1
There continues to be no shared convention in referring to πνεῦμα
(pneuma) in academic discourse. The hybrid capitonym “S/spirit” proposed by
various scholars to appeal to the term’s divine and/or human (or natural) referents
has not been widely followed, either due to its clumsiness of use or because of the
theological questions it begs. Recently, scholars have opted for the untranslated,
transliterated pneuma to avoid anachronism or freighting the term with modern
notions generated by the word. While pneuma will be preferred, the various forms
of the term will appear in this study depending on sources and interlocutors.
Where applicable, and for the sake of convention, the term “Spirit” may be used
to connote an aspect of divine presence (or power) and “spirit” for other nondi-
vine categories, but too much should not be drawn from these decisions.

1
 2 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

transform, relativize, or transcend in order to unify diverse members

into a new family. Instead of ethnic transcendence or transformation,
this book proposes that the Spirit enables a unity within variegated
patterns of worship among different groups of people. Framed this
way, Paul regards the Spirit as establishing a new cultic space around
the person of Christ such that Jewish and gentile believers retain
much of their ethnic differences while joining together in common
worship—­what he calls “worship in Spirit.”2
Looking closely at the cognitive environments that inform this
theme of “one spirit,” Paul’s discourse reflects the ways in which the
Jewish Scriptures interact with the subject of oneness, which not only
asserts that God is one, but relatedly instructs that Israel’s divided king-
doms should also reflect a corresponding unity.3 But it is also the case
that the idea of “one Spirit” resonates with popular Greco-­Roman
philosophical ways of thinking about the world and “God.” “The
whole of substance,” according to Chrysippus, “is unified because it is
totally pervaded by a pneuma through which the whole is held togeth-
er.”4 The Stoics convey an interest in the interconnected nature of the
world held together by pneuma so as to form the basis for a fellowship
(κοινωνία) among humanity, a catchword that bears strong points of
connection with Pauline spirituality.5 Accordingly, there are various
points of contact in the background literature that require exploration
in connection with the unitive aspects of Paul’s pneuma.
Turning to the secondary literature over this theme, key fault lines
in the debates over Pauline theology converge precisely over how
pneuma establishes a familial standing among God’s people. Some
within the “new perspective” lay tremendous store in the redefinition
of God’s people around the Messiah and the “Spirit” so that what is
central for Paul is a “multinational” family bonded together (both
Jew and gentile) by a “spirit” that transcends ethnic barriers.6 But

2
Phil 3:3; cf. John 4:24.
3
E.g., Deut 6:7; Ezek 27:22; also Josephus, Ant. 4.212; Let. Aris. 160.
4
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 216.144–­46.
5
See § 3.2.5.
6
Notable within this group are the works of N. T. Wright, e.g., Paul and
the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 375, 1021, and 1138. The
subject of the nonethnic criterion comprising Christian “churches” is virtually a
Introduction 3

it is not self-­evident that “spiritual” in Paul’s idiom refers to some-

thing nonliteral or immaterial, and hence, in the unity it establishes,
something ethnically neutral. It is for these reasons (among others)
that the responses from Paul-­within-­Judaism scholars counter with a
view of the pneuma that materially (even biologically) establishes for
gentiles a ground of filial kinship with Abraham. With the pneuma
so framed, gentiles who receive the pneuma receive a distinct yet
coordinate standing as Abraham’s heirs alongside Israel kata sarka.7
Entering this debate from another (decidedly more theological)
starting point, more recent “apocalyptic” readings of Paul privilege a
distinct emphasis on the vertical revelation of God in Christ. In this
view, the Spirit appears to be that which also must await the “Christ
event” in order to enter the world for the first time as a new, uncon-
ditioned presence. This level of discontinuity threatens to destabi-
lize an understanding of God’s Spirit in Israel’s own history and in
the Hebrew Scriptures.8 So, then, each of these three frameworks
of Pauline thought uses “spirit” differently, even incommensurably,
in furthering their larger arguments in ways that require correction,
restatement, or at least further mutual exchange.

1.2. Thesis Stated

Rather than merely interrogate all of the ways Paul conceived of the
pneuma and unity, this study will focus on the particular way Paul
draws together the Spirit with Jewish and gentile unity. It will be the
burden of this study to defend the thesis that Paul regards the Spirit
as the relational principle for unity among God’s people, whereby
believers are joined to the Lord Jesus and one another. In drawing
out this relationship, Paul relies on the predominantly cultic imagery

sine qua non for new perspective scholarship more broadly. See, e.g., James D. G.
Dunn, “Do We Undermine the Law?” in Paul and the Mosaic Law, ed. James
D. G. Dunn (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 287–­308; cf. John M. G. Barclay,
“‘Neither Jew nor Greek’: Multiculturalism and the New Perspective on Paul,”
in Ethnicity and the Bible, ed. Mark G. Brett (Boston: Brill Academic, 2002),
197–­214.
7
See the discussion of this scholarship in § 6.3.
8
Cf. Grant Macaskill, “History, Providence and the Apocalyptic Paul,” SJT
70 (2017): 409–­26.
 4 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

of God’s temple. The resulting spiritual complex that Paul constructs

is articulated principally in terms of a new temple to be inhabited by
both Jews and gentiles together but recombined in a way that pre-
serves and accommodates their different identities and traditions. In
this way, Paul did not regard the Spirit as establishing a transcendent
“third race” that is neither Jew nor gentile, but rather regarded the
Spirit as establishing a renewed cultic space “in Christ” where both
Jews and gentiles (each in their distinct way) join together in worship
of the same Lord. In this regard, Paul connects Jewish and gentile dif-
ferences around the valence of cultic expression and temple worship,
as opposed to addressing these differences in terms of strictly ethnicity
or race. Consequently, for Paul, the unifying Spirit and accompany-
ing notions of spiritualization did not supersede Israel’s covenant and
law, but expanded them to include gentiles among God’s assembly,
all the while preserving a fraught space for the continued observance
of Torah for believing Jews.
Students of Pauline theology over the last century can appreciate
how contested some of these larger conclusions are given the state of
the debates. It is not the goal of this study to simply relitigate these
arguments anew. Rather, by attending carefully to the logic of Paul’s
Spirit discourse, this study will seek to correct some of the ways “spirit,”
“spiritualization,” and “spiritual fulfillment” have been used in the sec-
ondary scholarship—whether as a way of endorsing a supersession of
Israel in Paul’s communities or conferring a pneumatically ethnic basis
for gentiles to claim Abrahamic patrilineage. If successful, the claims
supporting this thesis will occupy a space between each of the major
currents in Pauline theology at issue in this study,9 improving our cat-
egories for understanding Paul’s pneuma discourse, and so extend our
reach toward understanding Paul’s concept of spiritual unity.
The study will proceed in two sections. Chapters 1–­3 form the
descriptive portion of the study, where the various literary corpora
(both Jewish and non-­Jewish) covering the subject of the unitive
dimensions of spirit are discussed and compared. This section will
not merely prepare a foreground for Pauline pneumatology but will

9
That is, the new perspective, the Paul-­within-­Judaism paradigm, and the
apocalyptic Paul paradigm.
Introduction 5

instead seek to allow the various textual groups to display their dis-
tinctive features and accents on the spirit. Chapters 4–­5 demonstrate
the constructive thesis concerning Paul’s use and understanding of
“one Spirit” consistent with what has already been articulated. These
chapters will focus principally on 1–­2 Corinthians for its primary evi-
dence to ensure that the demonstrable Pauline themes are rooted in
a single context rather than drawn from differing situations and occa-
sions. This emphasis also serves to provide a counterweight to Pau-
line studies that have supported their major claims principally upon
Galatians and Romans. Chapter 6 will test this thesis against the three
prevailing perspectives on Pauline thought consistent with what has
been introduced here.

1.3. Methodological Considerations

1.3.1. The Lexical-­Semantic Issues Involving πνεῦμα and πνεύματικος

This study will not attempt a formal word study of Paul’s use of pneuma.
Understanding what Paul meant by pneuma is, after all, not contained
in the lexeme itself or its proper translation, but more principally in its
function in Pauline texts and communal discourse.10 Studying Paul’s
view of the pneuma also requires that the scope of examination be
expanded beyond the word pneuma and its cognates. On a basic level,
widening the frame of analysis beyond lexical correspondence requires
an awareness of the “associative field” with pneuma11 that takes into
account their syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations.12

10
See the helpful discussion concerning sense and reference in pneuma dis-
course in Michael Winger, “The Meaning of Πνεῦμα in the Letters of Paul: A
Linguistic Analysis of Sense and Reference,” CBQ 78, no. 4 (2016): 706–­25.
11
Thiselton identifies the following words in the natural field: ἄνεμος,
λαῖλαψ, πνοή; in the anthropological field: ψυχή, καρδία, ἐτράρχη; in the divine
field: ἐν δυνάμει, κύριος; and in the supernatural beings field: λειτουργικά,
στοιχεῖον, πνεύματα, δαίμων, ἀρχή. Anthony C. Thiselton, “Semantics and New
Testament Interpretation,” in New Testament Interpretation: Essays on Principles
and Methods, ed. I. Howard Marshall (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 90–­91.
12
For further discussion of lexical semantic theory on pneuma in particular,
see Thiselton, “Semantics”; also D. A. Cruse, Lexical Semantics (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986), 15; cf. Dirk Geeraerts, Theories of Lexical
Semantics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
 6 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

With all this having been said, some of the initial lexical challenges
involved with understanding pneuma in ancient texts must be grap-
pled with at the outset.13 As is the case with the wide semantic range
of the modern usage of the word “spirit” (e.g., a spirited conversa-
tion, a spiritual encounter, esprit de corps, zeitgeist, the “Spirit of
God,” new age spirituality), there exists a similarly diverse semantic
range of pneuma in the ancient world, not only in religious contexts,
but also in ancient philosophical, cosmological, medical, magical,
and sociopolitical contexts.14 In antiquity, the pneuma was not only
understood by some as the cohesive substance supporting all mate-
rial reality, but it was also understood by others as the life principle
transferred in seminal procreation, the dynamism behind human dis-
positions, or even the very presence of God. For these reasons, some
have suggested that pneuma represents for modern readers the possi-
bility of a legitimate “semantic void” where the distance between the
ancient understanding lacks shared conceptual and lexical analogues
with modern language and is hence virtually nontranslatable (at least
in the sense of word-­to-­word translation without appeal to extensive
historical explanation).15
This is not to suggest that pneuma bore an indeterminate mean-
ing in the ancient world, but it is to raise awareness of its polysemous
quality and its flexibility to speak on multiple registers. Thiselton

13
More comprehensive studies on these lexical semantic features can be
found in Eduard Schweizer, “Πνεῦμα, Πνευματικός,” in TDNT, ed. Gerhard
Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 1964), 389–­455; Terence Paige, “Who Believes in ‘Spirit’? Πνεῦµα in
Pagan Usage and Implications for the Gentile Christian Mission,” HTR 95,
no. 4 (2002): 417–­36; Desta Heliso, “Divine Spirit and Human Spirit in Paul
in the Light of Stoic and Biblical-­Jewish Perspectives,” in Spirit and Christ in
the New Testament and Christian Theology: Essays in Honor of Max Turner, ed. I.
Howard Marshall, Cornelis Bennema, and Volker Rabens (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2012), 156–­76.
14
On this diversity, see Winger, “Meaning of Πνεῦμα”; also Paige, “Πνεῦµα.”
15
See Jennifer Eyl, “Semantic Voids, New Testament Translation, and
Anachronism: The Case of Paul’s Use of Ekklesia,” MTSR 26, no. 4 (2014):
315–­39 (explaining the difference between a linguistic void where the target
language shares concepts with the source language without having a comparable
lexeme, and a semantic or referential void where both concept and language are
in some meaningful sense missing).
Introduction 7

illustrates the semantic range of pneuma into at least four main cate-
gories: natural, human, divine, and other supernatural agencies (see
in the following figure).16

Semantic Schematization of πνεῦμα (Thiselton)

Adding to the complexity, pneuma in ancient literary contexts is

incapable of being essentialized or pressed into any reliable, thor-
oughgoing consistency. Pneuma is constantly invoked in relation to
someone or something else. One finds in Paul’s letters the “Spirit
of God,” or the “Spirit of the Son,” or less personally, the “Spirit of
faith,” or “the spirit of adoption,” or a “spirit of the world,” or a “spirit
of stupor.” This genitival feature of the pneuma—­a feature extending
well outside Pauline discourse—­ensures an open-­ended adaptability
to the objects, persons, emotions, and attributes to which it attaches.
In many respects, this adaptability was what made the term useful in
biblical and extrabiblical texts.17
A related complexity attends to how we understand correlated
lexemes such as πνευματικός (spiritual). Recently scholars have paid
more attention to the danger of anachronism when investing the idea

16
Adapted from Thiselton, “Semantics,” 91. In the various Greek philosoph-
ical, cosmological, meteorological, and anthropological occurrences, pneuma is
often closely associated with a number of important related terms, namely ἀήρ,
αἰθήρ, φῦσα, and ἄνεμος (as well as a number of minor terms such as ἀελλα,
θύελλα, ἀναθυμίασις).
17
See also Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kin-
ship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
73 (“These authors treat the spirit as if it can be attached to any entity or con-
cept, somehow embodying the essence of the thing to which it is attached”).
 8 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

of “spirituality” with modern distinctions of simple immateriality.18

The term “spiritual” or “spirituality” in modern discourse stands in
danger of “growing so imprecise and polysemous as to be practically
valueless.”19 Dale Martin among others has criticized the tendency
of modern biblical interpreters to “take Paul’s term ‘pneumatic’ to
be equivalent to the modern English term ‘spiritual,’ which usually
designates something that is not ‘physical’ or ‘natural.’”20 Martin
finds such anachronism rooted in the prevailing Cartesian dichoto-
mies of the natural and supernatural, which readily map onto notions
of physical versus spiritual.21 The point is important for some of
Paul-­within-­Judaism scholars who seek to recharacterize pneuma as
ontologically more substantial and therefore decidedly material in
opposition to something merely “fictive” and therefore “nonethnic”
and universalizable.22
Studies emphasizing “spiritualization” and “supersessionism” in
Pauline (and New Testament) studies similarly trade on fairly dichot-
omistic assumptions of spiritual fulfillment.23 The term “spiritualiz-
ing” in these contexts often leverages the ability of pneuma to take
physical objects and rituals such as a sacrifice and apply them not
only to immaterial referents, but also toward abstract principles that
interpret only the meaning or purpose behind embodied ritual or
sacred space. Even Gärtner’s important study on the temple leans
more heavily on the actual word pneumatikos than is warranted when

18
E.g., Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 115.
19
John M. G. Barclay, “Πνευματικός in the Social Dialect of Pauline Chris-
tianity,” in The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G.
Dunn, ed. Graham N. Stanton, Stephen C. Barton, and Bruce W. Longenecker
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 167n30.
20
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1995), 127.
21
Martin, Corinthian Body, 127. Cf. Ernst Käsemann, “Geist und Buch­
stabe,” in Paulinische Perspektiven (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969), 235–­85.
22
See the discussion in § 6.3.1.
23
E.g., Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Cultic Language in Qumran and in
the NT,” CBQ 38, no. 2 (1976): 159 (“The common definition of the term
[spiritualization] presupposes a certain dualistic understanding between what
relates to and consists of spirit [in an idealistic sense] and what relates to material
or bodily realities”). See § 5.1.
Introduction 9

he explains that “behind the word [pneumatikos] there seems to lie

the meaning of ‘true,’ the ‘true’ temple of God.”24 Certainly Gärtner
believes the new community of the Spirit is “true” in a way that the
prior temples were not, but this presumes more about pneuma and
pneumatikos than the evidence permits. Recently more scholars have
argued that the significance of the Jerusalem temple has not been
superseded or replaced simply because the locus of the temple in New
Testament discourse shifts from the temple mount in Jerusalem to
the believing community in terms of the Spirit.25 At least as it pertains
to the secondary literature, this study will pay particular attention to
how scholarship uses “spiritualization” for the claim that physical and
ethnic distinctions are transmuted to nonearthly realities.

1.3.2. Spatiality and Thirdspace

Particularly in the later chapters, this study will draw upon insights
from spatial theory to open up better conceptual categories for Paul’s
spatial imagery concerning the Spirit (e.g., temple of the Holy Spirit
or “God’s building”). More recently, biblical studies has begun to
catch up with the wider scholarly world in recognizing the value of
developing a critical spatial awareness in texts.26 Critical spatiality

24
Bertil E. Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the New
Testament: A Comparative Study in the Temple Symbolism of the Qumran Texts
and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 73
(commenting on the οἶκος πνεῦματικός of 1 Pet 2:5 and the similar occurrence
in Eph 2:22).
25
E.g., Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and
Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 213–­45; Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God’s Temple: A Histor-
ical Interpretation of Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence (Leuven:
Peeters, 2006), 384; Kathleen Troost-­Cramer, “De-­Centralizing the Temple: A
Rereading of Romans 15:16,” JJMJS, no. 3 (2016): 71–­101. Klawans helpfully
isolates various strands of biases that seem to motivate the desire to regard Chris-
tian fulfillments as the evolutionary pinnacle of their Jewish forebears—­rooted
either in the view that Christ’s sacrifice means the Jewish temple must be flawed
or in the view that bloody sacrifice is a primitive practice which must sublimate in
a heavenly sacrifice.
26
See, e.g., Jon L. Berquist, “Critical Spatiality and the Construction of the
Ancient World,” in Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and His-
torical Constructs, ed. David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt (London: Sheffield
 10 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

here refers to an interdisciplinary body of scholarship that is oriented

toward aspects of space that move beyond its essentially regional,
topographical, and even historical features (although these are neces-
sarily in view), and more toward its socially constructed, processual,
and contested quality—­ways of understanding space that are capable
of being conceived in new valences of significance.27 As such, what
is not in view here are the valuable historical reconstructions based
upon available archaeological evidence that sketch an account of the
ancient homes, insulae, and localities where the early churches might
have met together.28 Instead, this study’s interest in spatiality is selec-
tive and heuristic, focusing principally on the theories of Edward Soja
(following the work of Henri Lefebvre),29 who elaborates on the criti-
cal construct of Thirdspace as an interpretive strategy for drawing out
the social and relational practices latent in space.30

Academic Press, 2002), 14–­29; also the collection of essays in Jorunn Økland,
J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen J. Wenell, eds., Constructions of Space III: Biblical
Spatiality and the Sacred (New York: T&T Clark, 2016).
27
For a good overview of the so-­called spatial turn in the broader aca-
demic disciplines and its potential applications for biblical studies, see Patrick
Schreiner, “Space, Place and Biblical Studies: A Survey of Recent Research
in Light of Developing Trends,” CurBR 14, no. 3 (2016): 340–­71; see also
Michael J. Thate, “Paul, Phrónēsis, and Participation: The Shape of Space
and the Reconfiguration of Place in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” in “In
Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and Participation, ed.
Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell (Tübin-
gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 281–­330; also Laura S. Nasrallah, “Spatial Perspec-
tives: Space and Archaeology in Roman Philippi,” in Studying Paul’s Letters:
Contemporary Perspectives and Methods, ed. Joseph A. Marchal (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2012), 53–­74.
28
See, e.g., Jerome Murphy-­O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archae-
ology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002), 178–­85; also David
G. Horrell, “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth: Imagining New
Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre,” NTS 50, no. 3 (2004): 349–­69.
29
Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-­and-­
Imagined Places (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996); Henri Lefebvre, The Produc-
tion of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-­Smith (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell,
1992). A fuller discussion of these works is reserved for § 5.1.1.
30
For a helpful introduction to Soja and the application of Thirdspace in bib-
lical studies, see Paula M. McNutt, “‘Fathers of the Empty Spaces’ and ‘Strang-
ers Forever’: Social Marginality and the Construction of Space,” in Imagining
Introduction 11

While the engagement of Lefebvre and Soja in biblical studies is

now considerable31 (although decidedly less developed in Pauline
studies), its use in this study requires some justification. Lefebvre’s
theories elucidate the social construction of space, focusing on the
systems, forces, politics, and socially constructed dynamics at work
in the “production of space.”32 Toward these ends Lefebvre’s work
attempts more holistic forms of discourse between theoretical spa-
tiality and history and sociality, a triad that generates a proclivity of
analyzing space in threes—­space as perceived, conceived, and lived.
Soja’s application of this “trialectic of spatiality” emphasizes Third-
space as its own controlling critical category capable not only of
incorporating all other modes of spatiality (whether perceived or
conceived, real or imagined), but also more broadly capable of han-
dling competing, even incommensurable viewpoints on a number of
conceptual levels. In his words, Soja’s Thirdspace is a critical space
“where the geographical imagination can be expanded to encom-
pass a multiplicity of perspectives.”33 Perhaps more famously, “every-
thing comes together in Thirdspace: subjectivity and objectivity, the
abstract and concrete, the real and imagined,” among a range of

Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs, ed. David
M. Gunn and Paula McNutt (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 30–­50;
other studies that have drawn on Thirdspace for the study of biblical texts include
G. Anthony Keddie, “Triclinium Trialectics: The Triclinium as Contested Space
in Early Roman Palestine,” HTR 113, no. 1 (2020): 63–­88, Hannah K. Har-
rington, The Purity and Sanctuary of the Body in Second Temple Judaism (Göt-
tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019); also Melissa Pula, “Rethinking the
Community as Temple: Discourse and Spatial Practice in the Community Rule
(1QS)” (PhD diss., University of Denver, 2015).
31
E.g., Christopher Meredith, “Taking Issue with Thirdspace: Reading Soja,
Lefebvre, and the Bible,” in Constructions of Space III: Biblical Spatiality and the
Sacred, ed. Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen J. Wenell (New York:
T&T Clark, 2016), 75–­76 (observing that the majority of essays on biblical space
reviewed by the author utilize a “Sojan or Lefebvrian ‘trialectic’ as their con-
trolling methodology”).
32
Lefebvre, Production of Space; also Mark Gottdiener, “A Marx for Our
Time: Henri Lefebvre and the Production of Space,” Sociological Theory 11
(1993): 129–­36.
33
Soja, Thirdspace, 5.
 12 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

other binary antipodes.34 Such methodological open-­endedness has

allowed Soja’s theories to address a range of issues at once, whether
spatiality, economic inequality, social justice, or political resistance.
Such flexibility provides interpreters of Scripture a range of poten-
tially helpful applications. However, this very open-­endedness has
been criticized as encompassing far too much to be “useful as a tool
for critical reflection.”35
For these reasons, the limits on spatial theory for interpreting texts
are important to recognize. Lefebvre himself warned that those ana-
lyzing space in literary texts “will find it everywhere and in every
guise.”36 With such cautions in place, our interest in Thirdspace is
limited heuristically to the categories it opens for understanding
Paul’s discourse on the pneuma in ways that are unavoidably spatial.
When Paul relies on the imagery of “the temple of the Holy Spirit”
(1 Cor 6:19), a joining of many members forming one body, a unity
that combines Jewish and gentile as well as male and female modes of
difference, Paul’s spatial imagery asks his readers to combine multiple
layers of perspectives and considerations at once. Consequently, Soja’s
Thirdspace model, while multidisciplinary in its epistemological and
methodological aims (and hence not properly tailored for our nar-
rower interpretive goals), still can provide us with otherwise unavail-
able conceptual categories that help clarify the social function of
Paul’s spatial imagery. As we will see, framing Pauline discourse along
its spatial terms adds an oft-­neglected dimension to long-­standing
Pauline debates concerning the church and Israel that have mainly
focused upon questions of time and narrative identity (i.e., whether
the church stands in the place of Israel or whether Paul homogenizes
racial difference by means of the pneuma). We will argue that Paul’s

34
Soja, Thirdspace, 56–­57. By “everything,” Soja is not speaking literally of
every conceivable thing in existence, but the totality of the conceptual antipodes
that he had been referencing in his statement (e.g., the subjective and objective
bases of knowledge as well as modern and postmodern epistemologies).
35
Meredith, “Taking Issue with Thirdspace,” 80; for similar concerns on the
application of Thirdspace in religious texts, see also Claudia V. Camp, “Storied
Space, or, Ben Sira ‘Tells’ a Temple,” in Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in
Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs, ed. David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt
(London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002), 64–­80.
36
Lefebvre, Production of Space, 15.
Introduction 13

view of the Spirit, rather than establishing a third race that is nei-
ther Jew nor gentile, constructs a new understanding of sacred space
that is able to accommodate the differences of both groups while still
capable of uniting them in worship of the same God.

1.4. The Available Sources for the Pneuma

Hermann Gunkel’s watershed study on the Spirit begins with a ques-
tion that continues to resonate for subsequent studies of the ancient
pneuma: “What are the sources in which we can recognize how the
primitive Christian community viewed the Spirit and his activities?”37
Because this study only seeks to draw out one aspect from Paul’s view
of the pneuma, this presentation of Paul’s literary and historical con-
text must engage the material from a correspondingly selective and
eclectic angle. Even with these limits in place, the task remains com-
plicated due to the proclivity of scholars to draw from an expansive
array of sources when explicating pneuma. Depending on the study,
the relevant context for Paul’s view of the Spirit may be found in the
literature of Hellenistic Judaism, or the cosmological philosophy of
Stoicism, or the prophetic material of the Hebrew Bible, or the pop-
ular views of pneuma discernible from the Greek medical texts, or the
spiritism of the ancient Greek magical papyri, or from the broader
“spirit world” of Paul’s time, or from the dialogues of Plato and Aris-
totle (or the pre-­Socratic philosophers), or perhaps the mystery cults
of the common era (and the options continue).38 Certainly, not all
of these various contextual sources are compatible with one another,
and some will prove more probative than others for our research
question. Nevertheless, this study shares the opinion of Jörg Frey and
John Levison, whose important introduction to Pauline pneumatol-
ogy insists on the “recognition that borders between ancient cultures
were porous” and therefore one must admit a wide acceptance of
“all potentially relevant ancient cultures and corpora” to inform a

37
Hermann Gunkel, The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View of the
Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul; A Biblical-­Theological Study
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 11.
38
To this we can add evidentiary material from Jewish mysticism, pneuma
metaphors in Greco-­Roman political discourse, the oracles at Delphi, and the
writings of Plutarch.
 14 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

well-­rounded understanding of pneuma (in this case, in the letters of

Paul).39 Consequently, the character of the next two chapters will be
simultaneously selective in focus, while also expansive in the array of
potential contextual evidence. Admittedly, this may result in a pre-
sentation of evidence that can be critiqued as a mile wide and an inch
deep. However, the alternative of foreclosing meaningful avenues of
evidence presents a far less desirable outcome.
Finally, the various sources will be analyzed with their own struc-
tures and controlling ideas in view—­to the extent that these can be
successfully identified. Eibert Tigchelaar helpfully cautions that when
gathering evidence concerning the “spirit” in the relevant texts, one
“cannot extract statements about holy spirit in specific texts from
their textual context and larger worldview.” He advises rather that
“one should rather compare the different systems [that produced the
text] than individual statements.”40

39
Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, “The Origins of Early Christian Pneuma-
tology: On the Rediscovery and Reshaping of the History of Religions Quest,”
in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary
Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R. Levison (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 36.
40
Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Historical Origins of the Early Christian Concept
of the Holy Spirit,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiq-
uity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R. Levison (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2014), 240.
 2
Jewish Background
Material for One Spirit

I humbly beseech thee, that thou wilt let some portion of thy Spirit
come down and inhabit in this temple, that thou mayest appear to be
with us upon earth.
Josephus, Ant. 8.114

2.1. Jewish Biblical and Extrabiblical Pneumatology in

Wide-­Angle Perspective
2.1.1. Spirit in the Hebrew Bible and the LXX
There are 389 references to ‫ רוח‬in the Jewish Scriptures (with eleven
Aramaic references in the book of Daniel). The default meaning of
this term denoting “air in motion” or “wind” shifts in biblical texts
where it is contextually paired with God or YHWH.1 The expressions
‫( רוח אלהים‬Spirit of Elohim) and ‫( רוח יהוה‬Spirit of YHWH) take on
the sense of the “breath” or “spirit” of God in terms that bear a close
relational association with the divine identity or his activity upon

1
Cf. Miles V. Van Pelt, Walter C. Kaiser, and Daniel I. Block, “‫רוח‬,” in
NIDOTTE, ed. Willem VanGemeren, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997);
Michael R. Westall, “Scope of the Term ‘Spirit of God’ in the Old Testament,”
Indian Journal of Theology 26, no. 1 (1977): 29–43; Leon J. Wood, The Holy
Spirit in the Old Testament (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 1998); Robert Koch,
Der Geist Gottes im Alten Testament (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1991); Manfred
Dreytza, Der Theologische Gebrauch von Ruah im Alten Testament: Eine Wort-
Und Satzsemantische Studie (Giessen: Brunnen, 1990).

15
 16 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

creation.2 Because wind can naturally connote “breath” in humans,

the word has also been extended metaphorically to signify “the seat
of emotion” and inner disposition.3 Some have suggested for these
reasons that the majority of references to ‫ רוח‬in the Scriptures bear
an anthropological sense.4 While on the face of the evidence this is
largely accurate, such distinctions of an anthropological “spirit” over
against a divine “spirit” in the Scriptures are fairly artificial if one
does not take into account the concomitant notion that man’s breath
of life is donated by God, who is “the Lord God of the spirits of all
flesh” (Num 27:16).
In general, biblical scholarship on the Jewish Bible has favored
a distinction between the divine in-­breathing of the “spirit of life”
that was possessed by all humanity and the divine spirit of power that
worked miraculous or prophetic wonders among select charismatic
individuals.5 The scholarship of John Levison has labored to establish
that this reading derives largely from a Christian misinterpretation of
the Old Testament spirit passages, and that the “spirit of life” is the
same “spirit of power” in all humanity by fact of creation, capable of
cultivation by godly persons at different times and circumstances.6
One of the stubborn areas of Scripture that refuses to cooperate with
Levison’s thesis, however, is Numbers 11. When the “spirit” is put
upon the seventy elders, enabling them to prophesy, Moses hopes for
a democratization of a special anointing of the spirit: “Would that all
the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord put his spirit on
all the Lord’s people” (Num 11:29).
The prevailing Greek translation of the occurrences of ruach (‫)רוח‬
in the LXX is overwhelmingly pneuma (πνεῦμα) when denoting the

2
E.g., Lloyd R. Neve, The Spirit of God in the Old Testament (Cleveland,
Tenn.: CPT Press, 2011), 12–­13; and Daniel I. Block, “The Prophet of the
Spirit: The Use of Rwh in the Book of Ezekiel,” JETS 32 (1989): 27–­49.
3
A helpful semantic taxonomy of ‫ רוח‬in the Old Testament is found in
James M. Hamilton Jr., “God with Men in the Torah,” WTJ 65 (2003): 130–33.
4
E.g., Pieter de Vries, “The Relationship between the Glory of YHWH
and the Spirit of YHWH in the Book of Ezekiel, Part 1,” J. Bib. Pneum. Res. 5
(2013): 110.
5
Support for this characterization is described in detail in John R. Levison,
Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 3–­14.
6
See in particular John R. Levison, The Spirit in First-­Century Judaism
(Boston: Brill Academic, 2002) and Filled with the Spirit, 3–­14.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 17

range of its uses—whether breath, wind, the creation breath of life,

human disposition, and the spirit of God.7 These occurrences indicate
little difficulty equating ruach with pneuma when referring to God or
God’s activity upon people.8 The same cannot be said, however, when
ruach is used to denote anthropological aspects of the human spirit.
Although one must resist treating LXX translation decisions collec-
tively,9 we can observe a tendency for the translators to opt for other
Hellenistic terms (such as ψυχή) when ruach points to the inner emo-
tions or affective quality of humans.10 As we will see, the term ruach
will develop more significance with respect to God’s sacred presence
in the prophetic tradition.11

2.1.2. The Pneumatology of the Hellenistic Jewish Texts

Philo, Josephus, and Wisdom of Solomon share common features
that invite being read together (not least their similarity in provenance

7
Cf. Marie E. Isaacs, The Concept of Spirit: A Study of Pneuma in Hellenis-
tic Judaism and Its Bearing on the New Testament (London: Heythrop College,
1976), 10 (tabulating 277 out of its 378 occurrences in the Hebrew Bible).
8
The number of occurrences will vary depending on the level of abstraction
one determines ruach to function, whether as impersonal, natural phenomenon,
or a sign of God’s own power in creation and humanity. Cf. Richard E. Averbeck,
“Breath, Wind, Spirit and the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament,” in Presence,
Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, ed. David
G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011), 25–­37.
9
So the comments of James Barr, “Paul and the LXX: A Note on Some
Recent Work,” JTS 45, no. 2 (1994): 593–­601.
10
See, e.g., Gen 41:8, Exod 35:21, and Isa 54:6 for the use of ψυχή and
its cognates as a translation for ruach in its affective sense. See the discussion in
Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 10–­14. When ruach is associated with inner, negative
emotions, θυμός (and its related compounds) serves as a preferred translation for
ruach (e.g., Job 15:13; 6:4; Zech 6:8; Ezek 39:29).
11
See § 2.2.3. Undeveloped in this study is a discussion of ruach as the spirit
of prophecy. This important aspect of Spirit that is developed in the Hebrew
Bible continues to hold its shape firmly into the extrabiblical literature of the
Second Temple period. See the discussion of this feature of early Jewish pneuma-
tology in Robert P. Menzies, The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology:
With Special Reference to Luke-­Acts (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 53–­112. Also
passed over is the material pertaining to spirit possession in the ancient world
and its insights into New Testament and Pauline interpretation. For this, see now
Giovanni B. Bazzana, Having the Spirit of Christ: Spirit Possession and Exorcism
in the Early Christ Groups (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020).
 18 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

and thematic content). The pneumatological reflections of Philo

of Alexandria (ca. 20 BCE–­50 CE) supply an extensive discussion
of pneuma in conversation with the Hebrew Bible.12 However we
characterize Philo’s relationship between his Jewish tradition and
Greek philosophical ideas, his work reflects a protracted conversa-
tion between the symbols and concepts of both worlds, offering a
scripturally based apologia of the superiority of Jewish ethical mono-
theism over the Greek philosophical traditions (indebted though he
was to the latter).13 Consequently, Philo’s views on the Spirit reflect
an eclectic philosophical engagement, indicating both adaptation
and criticism of Stoic pneumatology as well as interaction with Pla-
tonism and Pythagoreanism.14 Philo appears to take for granted a
view of the pneuma that indicates a material, unifying substance with
the cosmos in line with Stoic cosmology.15 But Philo’s view of the
pneuma finds broad ranges of expression. Pneuma is the essence of
the soul and the impress of the divine image (Spec. 1.171; 4.171). It
is also the dynamic spirit of prophecy and as such can even transform
special persons (like Moses) with a form of greater kinship with the
divine (Mos. 1.175; QE 2.29). But for all of the Greek philosophi-
cal engagement that Philo marshalled, his theological commitments

12
See most recently Fulco Timmers, “Philo of Alexandria’s Understanding
of Πνεῦμα in Deus 33–­50,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures
of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R. Levi-
son (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 265–­92; also Levison, Spirit in First-­Century,
137–­60; André Laurentin, “Le pneuma dans la doctrine de Philon,” ETL 27,
no. 2 (1951): 390–­437; G. Verbeke, L’évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma du
stoïcisme à saint Augustin (Paris: D. de Brouwer, 1945), 236–­59.
13
Cf. Cristina Termini, “Philo’s Thought within the Context of Middle
Judaism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Philo, ed. Adam Kamesar (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 95–­123; also John M. Dillon, The
Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (1977; repr., Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1996), 135–­82.
14
E.g., Levison, Spirit in First-­Century, 151 (“Philo’s attitude toward Sto-
icism is, therefore, elastic, stretching from acceptance [Opif. 135] to critical
adaptation [Gig. 19–­31; Spec. 4.123] to vociferous opposition [Plant. 18–­26]”);
Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material
Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 24–­25.
15
E.g., Opif. 146 (“Every person, in respect of the mind, is allied to the
divine Reason, having come into being as a copy or fragment or ray of that
blessed nature, but in the structure of his body is allied to all the world”).
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 19

were predominantly in deference to “the One who is” (ὁ ὤν) (Exod

3:14) over “the One” (τὸ ὄν) of Platonic discourse.16 As such, sim-
plistic judgments that locate Philo’s pneumatology as a reiteration of
the Stoic material pneuma are likely to misunderstand how closely
Philo associated pneuma with the God of the Hebrew Bible and
imparted with pneuma a holy transcendence that cut against not only
the immanentism of Stoicism, but also the idealism of Plato.17
Philo’s presentation of the Jewish theological tradition in terms
understandable for pagan readers invites comparison with the writ-
ings of Josephus (ca. 37–­100 CE).18 Josephus’ rich experience as a
priestly scholar who served in the Jerusalem temple, who then lived
to see its destruction, and then lived as a diaspora Jew with conferred
Roman citizenship provides an important vantage point from which
he writes the history of the Jewish people.19 Josephus (consistent with
what has been found in the LXX) is comfortable with the transla-
tion of ruach as pneuma where the meaning comports with the con-
temporary Greek understanding of breath and wind. But he is much
less willing to equate the two when dealing with the anthropological

16
Philo identifies the ὁ ὤν (the “one who is” [Exod 3:14]) compared to the
τὸ ὄν so common in Platonism, although elsewhere employs both titles for Isra-
el’s God; e.g., Leg. 1.99; Det. 160; Post. 21, 175; Deus. 11, 52, 55, 69, 108–­9;
Plant. 21, 22; Migr. 169; Her. 95, 229; Mut. 11, 27; Mos. 2.161; Spec. 1.270,
313, 344, 345; Virt. 34, 215.
17
See Hans Leisegang, Der heilige Geist: Das Wesen und Werden der mystisch-­
intuitiven Erkenntnis in der Philosophie und Religion der Griechen (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1919), 67, 100 (holding that Philo balanced the immanentism of Sto-
icism with the transcendence of Platonism by holding onto features of both).
18
For recent review of the scholarship surrounding Josephus and a treatment
of his life and work, see in particular William den Hollander, Josephus, the Emper-
ors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian (Leiden: Brill, 2014); and
Shaye J. D. Cohen, Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a
Historian (Boston: Brill, 2002).
19
The priestly service of Josephus in the Jerusalem temple is inferred from
his own testimony (Life 1–­2); cf. Michael Tuval, From Jerusalem Priest to Roman
Jew: On Josephus and the Paradigms of Ancient Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2013). On the debated reliability and motivation of his writings given
the level of influence from Roman patronage, see Tessa Rajak, Josephus, 2nd ed.
(London: Bristol Classical Press, 2002), and the essays on Josephus and his read-
ers in Steve Mason, Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Catego-
ries (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 7–­35.
 20 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

register of these terms.20 In fact, Josephus, as a whole, exhibits a fairly

cautious approach in his use of pneuma, reserving the divine asso-
ciation with the pneuma principally to its reference to the spirit of
prophecy and to the divine presence in the temple.21
Other texts of this milieu demonstrate significant points of con-
tact with the Jewish Scriptures and Hellenistic ideas associated with
the spirit (most notably logos and sophia). Wisdom of Solomon (ca.
20 CE–­70 CE) portrays a “spirit” that is closely linked with wisdom
such that its spirit fills the earth, but also counsels the heart of the
godly to flee from deceit and unrighteousness (Wis 1:4–­7). As an
“intelligent spirit,” Wisdom is the “breath of God, and a pure ema-
nation of the glory of the Almighty” that “pervades and penetrates
all things” (Wis 8:22–­25). In this way, it marks the order and good-
ness of creation as it also cultivates the virtue of the righteous, who
will stand in judgment. The idea of judgment and the question of
justice in a world that appears full of injustice are a driving theme in
Wisdom, which explores eschatological restoration in its distinct way.
Wisdom provides a searching explanation of the vindication of the
righteous despite all appearances to the contrary, where the world
is full of injustice, where life remains “short and sorrowful” for the
godly, and where “might is right (2:11).”22
Wisdom is also notable for its extended polemic of idolatry against
the “ignorant” and the nations (e.g., Wis 14:22), contrasted with the

20
See in particular Ernest Best, “The Use and Non-­Use of Pneuma by Jose-
phus,” NovT 3, no. 3 (1959): 218–­25.
21
John R. Levison, “The Debut of the Divine Spirit in Josephus’s Antiqui-
ties,” HTR 87, no. 2 (1994): 123–­38; Best, “Pneuma,” 223 (“The only gen-
uinely new place into which Josephus introduces the conception of the divine
pneuma comes in Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple”); cf. 1 Kgs
8:27–­30; 2 Chr 6:18–­21. While shekinah is often invoked of God’s temple pres-
ence, Jewish rabbinic literature also knows of a “holy spirit” in connection with
“the presence [shekinah]” without any apparent difference of meaning. See
George F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age
of the Tannaim (1927; repr., Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997), 437n167
(attributing the relationship to the copyists and citing examples).
22
See the discussion of justice and judgment in Wisdom in Jonathan A. Line-
baugh, God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to
the Romans: Texts in Conversation (Boston: Brill, 2013), 25–­42.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 21

immunity of Israel from judgment in light of their own “knowledge”

of God as the proper object of worship (cf. Wis 15:1–­5). Wisdom is so
committed to this presentation of Israel as exempt from the judgment
against the idolatrous nations that in its review of the history of Israel
it largely omits the golden calf episode and God’s judgment for Israel’s
own idolatry.23 The basis for God’s just judgment upon the nations for
their idolatry is rooted in their ignorance (13:1) and their failure to
recognize God as creator (13:5–­6). The impulse to worship created
things, according to Wisdom, becomes the root cause of every other
kind of amoral living: “For the worship of idols not to be named is the
beginning and cause and end of every evil” (14:27).
As the theodicy unfolds, Wisdom upholds a way of framing the
world in a particular pattern that modern Pauline scholars might
recognize as “eschatological tension”—­the notion that despite the
way things appear for the righteous, God will defeat his enemies and
establish justice, and his righteous ones already live as though vin-
dicated (5:15–­23).24 It is notable, then, that even in a text such as
Wisdom, where the judgment of the nations and the unrighteous is
fully in view (and, by association, its eschatological restoration), it
along with the other texts of this group does not present a portrait
of Israel’s eschatological restoration in terms of a fresh outpouring of
the Spirit as might be found in the prophets (e.g., Joel 3:1–­3LXX). As it
stands, the Hellenistic Jewish extrabiblical texts remain largely unin-
terested in developing the prior scriptural traditions that link the giv-
ing of the pneuma with the eschatological restoration of the world.25

23
See, e.g., Linebaugh, God, Grace, and Righteousness, 67–­69; also John
M. G. Barclay, “‘I Will Have Mercy on Whom I Have Mercy’: The Golden Calf
and Divine Mercy in Romans 9–­11 and Second Temple Judaism,” EC 1 (2010):
82–­106.
24
See in particular Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Overlapping Ages at Qumran
and ‘Apocalyptic’ in Pauline Theology,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Lit-
erature, ed. Jean-­Sebastien Rey (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 309–­26. Stuckenbruck
insightfully contends that the shared features of eschatological tension in Jewish
apocalyptic literature with Pauline eschatology caution against isolating Pauline
innovation as a feature of a distinctly Christian apocalyptic.
25
E.g., Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 82–­85.
 22 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

2.1.3. The Pneumatology of the Qumran Corpus and Palestinian

Judaism
What is true of the relative lack of eschatological orientation with
respect to the Spirit in Hellenistic Jewish texts can also surprisingly
be said of the apocalyptic literature of the intertestamental period and
texts of Palestinian Jewish provenance. While this group of texts bear-
ing so-­called apocalyptic features is undoubtedly future-­oriented, the
shape of their eschatological horizon is curiously lacking in reference
to the Spirit.26
The notable exception to this is the profusion of references to the
“spirit” and its eschatological distinction in the texts associated with
the Qumran community.27 The density and variety of the kinds of
spirit discourse in these texts reflect both a wide semantic range as
well as a potential amalgam of various traditions forming the overall
view of “spirit” and its uses for the community.28 The range and use

26
See Richard Bauckham, “The Role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse,” EvQ
52, no. 2 (1980): 69–­70 (attesting to the “rarity of allusion to the Spirit in
intertestamental apocalyptic” and speculating that it is due at least in part to the
idea of the absence of the prophetic Spirit in the intertestamental period). We
note that 1 Enoch makes multiple allusions to the “Lord of Spirits” as a title for
God, and that the spirit can be depicted as a means of visionary transportation
(e.g., 1 En. 70:2), but these are isolated occurrences. Outside of eschatological
contexts, the “spirit” is still invoked in this literature, but principally as the “spirit
of prophecy.” E.g., 1 En. 91.1; Jub. 25.14; 31.12; LAB 18.11; 4 Ezra 14.22.
27
I accept the thesis that there is an identifiable sectarian community that
is connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls and furthermore that the identification
of the so-­called Yaḥad community with the Essenes (as described by Philo and
Josephus) is legitimate. Cf. John J. Collins, “The Yaḥad and ‘the Qumran Com-
munity,’” in Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A.
Knibb, ed. Charlotte Hempel and Judith M. Lieu (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 81–­96.
The issues continue to be a matter of debate in light of the characterization of
the Dead Sea Scrolls collectively as a “library” which includes indisputably non-
sectarian texts. E.g., Sidnie White Crawford and Cecilia Wassen, eds., The Dead
Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library (Leiden: Brill, 2015). See the
helpful criteria presented by Carol A. Newsom in the whimsically titled “‘Sectu-
ally Explicit’ Literature from Qumran,” in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters,
ed. William Henry Propp, Baruch Halpern, and David Noel Freedman (Winona
Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167–­88.
28
Earlier scholarship grappled with the question of whether the nonbiblical
texts at Qumran evince a consistent pneumatology or an amalgam of Jewish
and Iranian (Zoroastrian) influences—­particularly the features of the Two Spirits
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 23

of spirit occurrences in the nonbiblical Qumran texts map fairly well

with the pattern found in the Jewish Scriptures.29 In perhaps surpris-
ing contrast to the Hellenistic Jewish literature, it is in the Scrolls
(along with other Palestinian Jewish texts) that we find repeated refer-
ences in terms of “holy spirit” also prevalent in the New Testament.30
While the details of the Qumran community continue to be a site
of disagreement, their sectarian character31 as a generally accepted
distinction helps to locate their self-­identification as an elect group
upon whom has been given secret wisdom and revelation by God
(1QS 6.19; 1QHa 19.12–­17; CD 3.14). The spirit is key in mediating
this revealed disclosure to the elect. The remnant of the righteous are
taught by those “anointed by the holy spirit and those who see the
truth” (CD 2.12–­13),32 who are in contrast to those of the “spirit of
flesh,” who are unable to understand and discern the things that only

treatise of 1QS 4 which parallel the two-­spirit cosmology of Zoroastrian belief

and cuts against other views on the Spirit elsewhere in the Scrolls. On the early
history of this scholarship, see Arthur Everett Sekki, The Meaning of Ruaḥ at
Qumran (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 26–­ 63. On Zoroastrian two-­ spirit
cosmology, see, e.g., Prods Oktor Skjærvø, The Spirit of Zoroastrianism (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 8–­10.
29
For a discussion of the pneuma occurrences in this corpus and its points of
comparison with the Jewish Scriptures, see in particular Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar,
“Historical Origins of the Early Christian Concept of the Holy Spirit: Perspec-
tives from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures
of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R. Levison
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 167–240; see also Sekki, Meaning of Ruaḥ at Qum-
ran; Sven Tengström and Heinz-Josef Fabry, “‫רוח‬,” TDOT 13:365–402; also
Jörg Frey, “Paul’s View of the Spirit in the Light of Qumran,” in The Dead Sea
Scrolls and Pauline Literature, ed. Jean-Sebastien Rey (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 249
(“[W]e can say that ‫ רוח‬roughly covers the same range of meanings as in the
Hebrew Bible, but with some changes and extensions”).
30
As is commonly reported, the occurrences are rare (and likely late) in the
Old Testament (Ps 51:13LXX; Isa 63:10–­11; Dan 5:12; 6:3LXX). For a discussion
of the occurrences in the Jewish literature, see the discussion of Levison, Filled,
127–­36, and Frey, “View of the Spirit,” 249.
31
See, e.g., George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Polarized Self-­ Identification in
the Qumran Texts,” in Defining Identities: We, You, and the Other in the Dead
Sea Scrolls, ed. Florentino García Martínez and Mladen Popović (Leiden: Brill,
2007), 23–­31.
32
Tigchelaar, “Historical Origins,” 198; cf. 1QS 8.15–­16; 4QDe 2 ii 14;
4Q381.69.4.
 24 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

the sectarian can “know by means of the spirit that you have given
me” (1QHa 5.33–­36).
Furthermore, some of the sectarian texts reflect an appreciation
for a new covenant that God renews for the sectarian community.
We note that despite the distinct usage of the term “new covenant”
throughout the Scrolls, the community did not envisage a new
covenant in the later Christian (or even Pauline) sense, but rather
a renewal of the covenant that had been established with Israel.33
The Damascus Document34 makes clear that the covenant is the same
covenant that God institutes at Sinai (CD 15.7–­10).35 Furthermore,
the community’s understanding of the new covenant appears to find
significance in the restoration promises of both Jeremiah 31 and Eze-
kiel 36.36 Just as these prophets (Ezekiel in particular) emphasize the
inner reality of a renewed covenant that is realized in terms of God’s
Spirit and expressed in terms of keeping the commandments, like-
wise the Hodayot refers to “seeking a spirit of understanding, and
strengthening myself through your holy spirit, and clinging to the
truth of your covenant.”37 He continues to appeal to “the spirit that
you have placed in me . . . purifying me by your holy spirit” for the
benefit of the ones “you have chosen and for those who keep your
commandments” (1QHa 8.21–­22).

33
E.g., Craig A. Evans, “Covenant in the Qumran Literature,” in The Concept
of the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Jacqueline
C. R. De Roo (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 79 (“The ‘new’ or ‘renewed’ covenant in
the Dead Sea Scrolls is the same covenant God established with Israel at Sinai”);
Timothy Lim, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2017), 112.
34
Whether it originated from within the community or was appropriated for
its purposes, scholars are in general agreement of the Essenic character of the
document for its sectarian identity and practice. See, e.g., Philip R. Davies, The
Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the “Damascus Document” (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1983), 202–­4; E. P. Sanders, “The Dead Sea Sect and
Other Jews: Commonalities, Overlaps, and Differences,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls
in Their Historical Context, ed. Timothy H. Lim (Edinburgh: Bloomsbury,
2001), 41.
35
But this covenant is not temporally bound in a closed continuum as Abra-
ham and the fathers are conferred with the status of “eternal partners in the
Covenant” even though they are predecessors to Moses (CD 3.3–­4).
36
E.g., CD 8.20–­21; Tigchelaar, “Historical Origins,” 193.
37
1QHa 8.18–­32.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 25

One final aspect of this corpus that will be of particular interest

to the balance of this study concerns the well-discussed phenome-
non of the community’s self-identification in terms of a temple to
the Lord.38 With their disenchantment with the Hasmonean temple
administration likely serving as the raison d’être for the shape of their
temple discourse, the texts reveal a carefully constructed reimagining
of their own mediation of the temple properly administered within
their own community. In this regard, we find the designation of the
sect itself as a “holy house” or “Most Holy Dwelling” (1QS 5.5–6;
8.5–6; 9.3–6). Notably, however, the sect avoids using the formal
word for temple (‫ )היכל‬in making this communal designation. The
evidence indicates that the sectarian temple administration did not
take the form of actual offerings on site, but was rather expressed
through prayer, ritual, fervent study, and observance of the Torah.39
Importantly, in contrast to Pauline temple discourse, this literature
lacks any association between the spirit and the temple.
If we accept the Temple Scroll as reflecting sectarian thinking on
the matter,40 the sect looked further to a fulfillment of a future, escha-
tological temple, where the temple of God would dwell among his
people. When comparing the Temple Scroll with Ezekiel 37, Wen-
tling observes a striking similarity with the expectation of the future
restoration of God’s dwelling with his people: “Ezek 37:28: I, Yah-
weh, am consecrating Israel when my miqdash is in their midst for-
ever. 11QT 29.8b–­9a: and I shall consecrate my miqdash by my glory,
for I shall dwell upon it (him) with my glory until (during) the day of

38
See in particular Bertil E. Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in
Qumran and the New Testament: A Comparative Study in the Temple Symbolism
of the Qumran Texts and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1965); also, helpfully, Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Community without
Temple: The Qumran Community’s Withdrawal from the Jerusalem Temple,”
in Gemeinde ohne Tempel / Community without Temple, ed. Beate Ego, Armin
Lange, and Peter Pilhofer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 267–­84; and more
recently Eyal Regev, “Community as Temple: Revisiting Cultic Metaphors in
Qumran and the New Testament,” BBR 28, no. 4 (2018): 604–­31.
39
Cf. Schiffman, “Community without Temple,” 272–­76.
40
See the discussion in Sidnie White Crawford, The Temple Scroll and Related
Texts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 17–­28.
 26 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

blessing.”41 Wentling goes on to argue, along with others, that while

the sect’s tone is eschatological and apocalyptic in character, the cos-
mic victory of God over the sons of darkness does not end history,
but merely the judgment of their enemies. There remains, there-
fore, space for a physical return to the temple where its original and
embodied administration can be realized in this restored future.42 In
this sense, the temple for the Qumran community remains in Jerusa-
lem. Their temple self-­identification then is a qualified and provisional
marker by which their faithful obedience to the true understanding of
the Torah upholds God’s revealed will until they are vindicated and
the Jerusalem temple is finally restored to them.

2.1.4. What Is Pneuma? Material and Ontological Issues

A common reproach in recent pneumatology studies targets the
anachronistic Tendenz among scholars to invest the biblical use of
πνεῦμα (‫ )רוח‬with modern concepts denoting immateriality.43 Con�
sequently, a commensurate amount of research over the last several
decades has emphasized the material (or corporeal) aspects of pneuma
that appear taken for granted in many of the relevant sources of clas-
sical antiquity.44 The materiality of pneuma bears significance for a

41
Judith L. Wentling, “Unraveling the Relationship between 11QT, the
Eschatological Temple, and the Qumran Community,” RevQ 14 (1989): 61.
Wentling makes the astute observation that 11QT substitutes “miqdash” for
“Israel,” suggesting intentional redactional activity to place the locus of resto-
ration not on Israel as a whole, but the Qumran community.
42
Wentling, “Eschatological Temple,” 70–­72; also Schiffman, “Community
without Temple,” 280.
43
See, e.g., Paul Mark Robertson, “De-­Spiritualizing Pneuma: Modernity,
Religion, and Anachronism in the Study of Paul,” Method and Theory in the Study
of Religion 26, no. 4–­5 (2014): 365–­83. This kind of rhetoric is common in
authors stressing a material aspect of pneuma; e.g., Dale B. Martin, The Corin-
thian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 127.
44
E.g., Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and Self; Jeremy W. Barrier, “Jesus’
Breath: A Physiological Analysis of Πνεῦμα within Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,”
JSNT 37, no. 2 (2014): 115–­38; Troy W. Martin, “Paul’s Pneumatological State-
ments and Ancient Medical Texts,” in The New Testament and Early Christian
Literature in Greco-­Roman Context: Studies in Honor of David E. Aune, ed. John
Fotopoulos (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 105–­28. See also a full discussion of this subject
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 27

variety of reasons in the secondary scholarship. For some, materiality

would prove important for Paul’s sacramentalism and the transmis-
sion of pneuma,45 while for others, it would articulate the ontological
basis for ethical transformation in Paul’s native idiom,46 and for still
others, it would better convey the proper understanding of Paul’s
account of how gentiles join Jewish covenant members as children of
Abraham and heirs of God.47
It is indisputable that the Greek and Roman philosophical sources
assume a corporeal and decidedly material (as opposed to immaterial)
understanding of pneuma. Aristotle takes for granted that “pneuma
is a body” (τὸ δὲ πνεῦμα σῶμα).48 He along with Hippocrates wrote
extensively about pneuma and its role in transferring vital heat in
reproductive transmission.49 This is also true of the ancient Greek
medical texts that presume pneuma as a substance that can be applied
or received by human respiration or even absorption of the pores of

in Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empow-
ering for Religious-­Ethical Life, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 25–­120.
45
E.g., Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes: Studien zur paulin-
ischen Pneumatologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 162–­76.
46
E.g., Peter Stuhlmacher, “Erwägungen zum ontologischen Charakter der
kαινή kτίσις bei Paulus,” Evangelische Theologie 27 (1967): 1–­35; see also the
discussion in Rabens, Ethics, 5–­12, esp. 10n45 (discussing the development of
the pneumatology of Käsemann and Stuhlmacher away from an emphasis on
substance ontology and more toward the direction of sacramental presence).
47
E.g., Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 129–­60.
48
Aristotle, De Spiritu 1.481a; LCL 486. On Aristotle’s view of pneuma in
particular, see Gad Freudenthal, Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999); Sylvia Berryman, “Aristotle on Pneuma and Ani-
mal Self-­Motion,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23 (2002): 85–­97; W.
Jaeger, “Das Pneuma im Lykeion,” Hermes 48, no. 1 (1913): 29–­74.
49
E.g., Hippocrates, On Generation (elaborating his pangenetic theory of
semen, sexual generation, and the role of pneuma and water in semen). See also
the helpful commentary of Iain M. Lonie concerning On Generation in The
Hippocratic Treatises “On Generation,” “On the Nature of the Child,” “Diseases
IV,” ed. Gerhard Baader, Fridolf Kudlien, Charles Lichtenthaeler, and Klaus D.
Fischer (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1981); also Robertson, “De-­Spiritualizing Pneuma,”
373–­75; and Michael Boylan, “The Galenic and Hippocratic Challenges to Aris-
totle’s Conception Theory,” Journal of the History of Biology 17 (1984): 83–­112.
 28 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

the skin and oro-­nasal cavities.50 The Stoics, as will be shown, rely
heavily on the corporeal nature of pneuma in order to account for
their cosmological-­theological account of Nature, Fate, and the inter-
relationship of living matter with divine reason. In a different context,
pneuma can be described in terms of a “solid spirit” or as a “fire
bright spirit” in the magical texts, indicative of the way pneuma was
understood in agrestic contexts where popular folk belief was a strong
feature of life.51
The pneuma associated with the oracle at Delphi has also been
understood to convey some modicum of materiality, often described
by those familiar with the site as a “holy gas” or vapor that arises
from the chasm underneath the Pythia channeling prophetic inspi-
ration.52 Plutarch (ca. 46–­120 CE), a former priest at Delphi, like-
wise describes a mantic pneuma (μαντικὸν πνεῦμα) which can enter
the Pythia by way of a decisively material medium.53 Terence Paige
notes that the way Plutarch speaks of the “prophetic stream and

50
See, e.g., Annette Weissenrieder, “The Infusion of the Spirit: The Mean-
ing of Ἐμφυσάω in John 20:22–­23,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the
Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John R.
Levison (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 119–­52; and Martin, “Pneumatological
Statements.”
51
E.g., Eleni Pachoumi, “Divine Epiphanies of Paredroi in the Greek Mag-
ical Papyri,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51, no. 1 (2011): 155–­65
(discussing some of the occurrences of pneuma in the magical texts). On the
prevalence of magic and folk belief in Pauline communities, see Clinton E.
Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Christianity and Folk
Belief at Colossae (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995) and “‘I Am Astonished That
You Are So Quickly Turning Away!’ (Gal 1.6): Paul and Anatolian Folk Belief,”
NTS 51, no. 3 (2005): 429–­49.
52
Cicero (106–­43 BCE) reports “vapors” or “exhalations” which emanate
from a crevice under the oracle, and even attributes a decrease in oracular activity
to “differences in the earth’s exhalations [ex caeli varietate et ex disparili aspi-
ratione terrarum].” De Divinatione 1.79; also Terence Paige, “Who Believes
in ‘Spirit’? Πνεῦµα in Pagan Usage and Implications for the Gentile Christian
Mission,” HTR 95, no. 4 (2002): 427–­28 (canvassing literary uses of pneuma in
pagan contexts including the Delphic Oracle).
53
Def. orac. 432D. Paige notes, however, that there is no evidence that the
pneuma inspired any “ecstatic condition” or “glossolalia” at Delphi. On the con-
trary, Plutarch reports that any bizarre actions from the Pythia (whether in voice
or manner) signaled that something had gone wrong. See Paige, “Πνεῦμα,” 429;
Plutarch, Def. orac. 438a–­b.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 29

vapor” (μαντικὸν ῥεῦμα καὶ πνεῦμα) emanating from the springs of

the earth assumes a distinct materiality which was firmly anchored
to the sacred site.54
The case for a material spirit is harder to make in Jewish biblical
and extrabiblical literature. Wisdom of Solomon and Philo’s writ-
ings, which are both redolent with Stoic influence, support the
claim for corporeality, although it is important to recognize how
carefully this imagery is handled.55 Consequently, most similar to an
all-­encompassing pneuma that is crucial to the cohesive structure of
Stoic cosmology, Wisdom speaks of a “spirit of the Lord [that] fills
the world and holds all things together” (Wis 1:7). Nevertheless, Phi-
lo’s own criticism of Stoicism in favor of the Mosaic view, amplified as
it is with his finely grained theological reflection on divinity, provides
more complexity to how pneuma is understood.56 Philo maintained
an insistence on the distinction between God and humanity and with
this, an insistence on the immaterial nature of the divine.57 As pneuma
is the essence of the divine, Philo can and does describe both God and
pneuma somewhat interchangeably.58 While pneuma can be described
in terms of a substance (e.g., Gig. 22, 67), it is incorporeal substance
(ἀσώματος οὐσία) (Opif. 29; QG 1.94). Likewise for Josephus, his

54
Paige, “Πνεῦμα,” 428; see also Hans Josef Klauck, The Religious Context of
Early Christianity: A Guide to Graeco-­Roman Religions (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2003), 188 (affirming the material quality of pneuma at Delphi). Importantly,
other oracular sites featured ritual practice that involved the ingesting or appli-
cation of natural elements of the site. At the oracle of Apollo in Didyma the
priestess dipped her feet in the sacred spring, from where she breathed vapors
while waving a laurel branch. Pausanias, Descr. 2.24.1; Paige, “Πνεῦμα,” 429
(providing additional examples such as ritual drinking of water from a sacred
spring at Claros or drinking the blood of a lamb at Argos).
55
On the Stoic (among other Hellenistic) influences on Philo and Wisdom,
see, e.g., Verbeke, L’évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma, 223–­60; see also the
discussion of Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 9–­26; and Levison, Filled,
142–­50.
56
Philo distinguishes himself from the Stoics in particular and their view of
the world itself as a living being of which human souls are a fragment. See Plant.
18; cf. Diog. Laert. 7.143; see the discussion in Levison, Filled, 147–­48.
57
Rabens, Ethics, 73, citing Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 19, 30, 44.
58
Rabens, Ethics, 73 (Plant. 18; Leg. 2.2; Deus. 56; Gig. 26–­27); also Ver-
beke, L’évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma, 245–­47, 256–­59 (contending that
Philo regarded God’s Spirit as divine).
 30 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

use of pneuma reveals a careful distinction with other types of spirit

(such as an evil spirit or a lying spirit, for which he uses the term
δάιμων and its cognates). Josephus seeks to ensure that pneuma con-
sistently relates back to the Lord and his good gifts.59
With all of this taken into account, what tends to be more distinctive
among Jewish extrabiblical texts, following the imagery of the Jewish
Scriptures, is less of an insistence on the materiality of pneuma as such
and more of an accent on the interplay of the “wind” or “spirit” of
God with more substantive media such as water or oil through which
the spirit can be perceived or applied.60 For example, in the pivotal
moment of Joseph and Aseneth,61 Aseneth receives a honeycomb “full
of the spirit of life [ἡ πνοὴ ζωῆς]” as a symbol of her conversion; as
a consequence she is pronounced as having “eaten bread of life, and
[drinking] a cup of immortality, and [being] anointed with ointment
of incorruptibility” (Jos. Asen. 16.7–­9).62 From this, several schol-
ars have concluded that, consistent with Stoic theology, pneuma was
assumed to be material or “körperlich-­substanzhaft” (per Sänger),63
and was transmitted substantially, even sacramentally (per Horn)64

59
Ant. 6.211; see also Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 33–­34. The reference of
1 Sam 19:9 to “an evil spirit of God” (πνεῦμα θεοῦ πονηρὸν) was recast as τὸ
δαιμὸνιαν πνεῦμα, consciously removing any reference and hence association of
an evil pneuma with God. Cf. Best, “Pneuma,” 225.
60
On the joining of pneuma with materials (Hilfstoffe), see notably Horn,
Das Angeld des Geistes, 43–­59; also Otto Betz, Offenbarung und Schriftforschung
in der Qumransekte (Tübingen: Mohr, 1960), 130–­31.
61
Whereas in earlier studies it was widely accepted that Aseneth was a Jewish
composition written in Egypt between the second century BCE and first century
CE, recent investigations lead to an array of competing ideas. See most recently
Jill Hicks-­Keeton, Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living God in
Jewish Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 22–­29 (arguing
that the either/or propositions between Jewish and Christian origins in recent
proposals trade on the misunderstanding that these traditions are not mutually
overlapping sources that are able to influence the final form of the work).
62
See the discussion of Aseneth in Rabens, Ethics, 63–­67; also Moyer Hub-
bard, “Honey for Aseneth: Interpreting a Religious Symbol,” JSP 8, no. 16
(1997): 97–­110.
63
Dieter Sanger, Antikes Judentum und die Mysterien (Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 1980), 196.
64
Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes, 57 (citing Friedrich Preisigke, Die Gottes­
kraft der frühchristlichen Zeit [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1922], 29–­30).
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 31

through the bread and drink (8.5, 11) and through the honeycomb
(16.4). The reference to spirit in the narrative might suggest a rela-
tively important role that spirit plays in the reception of the honey,
but closer inspection of the text does not necessarily support such a
finding. What is prominent is not the presence of spirit itself, but the
motif of new birth (new creation), the reception of honey serving as
one more symbol among a series of others portraying her conversion
and initiation into new life. Honey was regarded as a heavenly form
of food, and it was common practice in antiquity for newborns to
receive it even before receiving the mother’s milk.65 Hence, honey
and the breath of life as symbols of new birth arise to the fore, rather
than the consumption of spirit as such.

2.1.5. The Liquid Spirit (Water and Oil)

Similar considerations are present in the relationship with spirit
and water. Water is a prominent means by which God’s spirit (‫)רוח‬
is administered in the Hebrew Bible. In Isaiah 44:3 one finds the
promise that God “will pour out water on the thirsty land” with the
parallel pronouncement that he will “pour out [his] Spirit on your
offspring and [his] blessing on your descendants.”66 The prophetic
promise that God will place his ruach within his people is paired with
the promise that “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be
clean” (Ezek 36:25–27). Behind such prophetic images is a long tra-
dition of depicting “spirit” in terms of something that can be poured67
or in terms of portions capable of dividing and sharing.68 Similarly,

65
Honey, while undoubtedly evocative of the biblical description of manna
(Exod 16:31), was known in antiquity to signify new birth. On this, see Hub-
bard, “Honey for Aseneth,” 110; also Véronique Dasen, “Childbirth and Infancy
in Greek and Roman Antiquity,” in A Companion to Families in the Greek and
Roman Worlds, ed. Beryl Rawson (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2011), 303
([In antiquity, before receiving the mother’s milk,] “the newborn just gets honey
boiled in water, a special food with heavenly connotations”).
66
Also Joel 2:28 (“I will pour out [‫ ]ׁשׁפך‬my spirit on all flesh”); Zech 12:10.
The links in Isaiah 44 between “spirit” on the one hand with “seed [descen-
dants]” and “blessing” on the other is interesting for it evokes the “spirit” with
the Abrahamic promise of blessing to the seed of Abraham which is a collocation
we find in Galatians 3.
67
Isa 19:14; 29:10; 32:15.
68
2 Kgs 2:9; Mal 2:15; also Num 11:16–­30.
 32 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

in the account of David’s anointing, Samuel took the horn of oil and
anointed him and “the Spirit of the Lord rushed [‫ ]תצלח‬upon David
from that day forward” (1 Sam 16:13).69 This image is taken up in
Isaiah 61:1, which declares, “the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me
because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.”70
These biblical illustrations of “spirit” with liquid imagery fund the
images found in the Jewish extrabiblical literature leading up to and
within the Second Temple period. For example, the Qumran litera-
ture adopts similar imagery of the “spirit” in terms that can be sprin-
kled, spread, or poured out.71 Likewise the New Testament conveys
similar images that pair water and spirit.72
What should be highlighted in the above discussion is not merely
the Spirit’s actual materiality, but more importantly the ascertainable
interplay between material and pneumatic media in portraying the
reception of the spirit in Jewish texts. The remarks from Timmers on
Philonic pneumatology are helpful in naming this mode of conveying
spirit in Jewish texts: “The dichotomy between material-­immaterial is
of little use for understanding Philo’s view on pneuma. In each succes-
sive manifestation of pneuma, immaterial categories and tangible mat-
ter can be seen to interact with each other, as two sides of one coin.”73
I venture that what Timmers finds true of Philo aids our understand-
ing of Jewish dynamics for receiving the Spirit by means of substan-
tive media. The Spirit in these texts energizes a way of describing
divine activity upon creation and specifically upon anointed persons.
Understood this way, pneuma names an ineffable power which can

69
This event may be what is referred to in the entreaty of Ps 51:11—­“take
not your Holy Spirit from me.” The language of anointing [‫ ]מׁשׁחה‬with oil is
very often collocated with consecration or making holy [ׁ‫ ]]קדׁש‬for the dedica�
tion of persons or tabernacle items in service to God. E.g., Exod 30:30; Lev
8:12; 21:12.
70
Cf. Acts 10:38 (“God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and
with power”); also Luke 4:18.
71
E.g., 1QHa 4.26; 15.6–­8; 1QS 3.3–­9.
72
E.g., John 3:5 (“born of water and spirit”); Acts 8:39; John 7:37–­39 (the
living water identified as “the Spirit”); 1 Cor 12:13 (being watered by or being
made to drink of “one Spirit”); Eph 5:18 (getting drunk on wine juxtaposed with
filling with the “Spirit”); 1 John 5:8 (“the Spirit and the water and the blood”).
73
Timmers, “Philo of Alexandria’s Understanding of Πνεῦμα,” 268–­69.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 33

be appreciated for its exteriority—­more precisely, the external and

observable effects of an internally operative reality.

2.1.6. Conclusion
Our overview, while brief at points, has been structured to serve our
comparative discussion by drawing out some of the larger controlling
ideas shaping the primary texts. Furthermore, by analyzing the var-
ious corpora in their broader aims and contexts, we are now better
situated to let the various texts speak to one another without appear-
ing to simply trawl through the text in search of parallels or using
these texts to establish a prolegomenon for Pauline pneumatology.
In the remaining sections, we will proceed through the texts with an
eye toward developing the principal ideas of the thesis pertaining to
the spirit in ancient Jewish literature: first, the association of spirit and
divinity, and second, the relationship of both spirit and divinity with
the important concept of oneness and unity.

2.2. The Spirit and Divinity in Biblical and Extrabiblical

Jewish Literature
By the time of the New Testament writings, Spirit discourse clearly
serves as a locution to denote God’s special presence with his peo-
ple. Such a connection, however, is far from univocal in the Jewish
Scriptures, where one finds a wide range of images and experiences of
the Spirit that span the range of divine, anthropomorphic, and natu-
ral phenomena. Nevertheless, as the textual traditions unfold through
time, the steps toward a discernible association of the Spirit with God’s
epiphanic presence can be observed—­a connection that becomes fur-
ther pronounced in later Jewish literature such that by Josephus, the
pneuma is that which signifies God’s presence in the temple.

2.2.1. Creation and Life

It remains a matter of debate whether in the Genesis account of cre-
ation, it is “the spirit of God” (‫ ))רוח אלהים‬that hovers over the pri�
mordial waters (Gen 1:2).74 What can be established firmly, however,

74
Among those favoring a translation of “spirit” over against a “mighty
wind,” see in particular Neve, Spirit of God in the Old Testament, 65; Michael
P. Deroche, “The Rûah ‘elōhîm in Gen 1:2c: Creation or Chaos?” in Ascribe
 34 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

is the association between spirit and the breath of life that is imparted
to man as a living being. We learn from the terminology of Gene-
sis 2:7, “breath” (‫)נׁשׁמה‬, Genesis 6:3, “ruach | spirit” (‫)רוח‬, and the
conflated Genesis 7:22 (‫ )נׁשׁמה רוח‬that there is relational pairing of
“breath” and “spirit” that names the “spirit of life” principle that God
bestowed upon humanity in creation.75 In Numbers, God is deemed
“the Lord [‫ ]יהוה‬God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num 27:16). This
creation motif of the “spirit of life” generates further reflection in
the Ezekiel material, most saliently in the Dry Bones passage (Ezek
37:1–14), where it is the spirit (‫ ))רוח‬that brings life in terms evoca�
tive of the creation narrative.76 Likewise, Isaiah evokes creation and
re-creation by portraying dry and barren lands being restored by the
pouring out of the spirit.77
The relationship between God’s Spirit and creation develops fur-
ther in the Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. “Let all
your creatures serve you,” Judith exclaims, “for you spoke and they
were made. You sent forth your spirit and it formed them” (Jud
16.14). Likewise, Aseneth prays, “O Lord [Κύριε] who gave to all
the breath of life . . . who has raised up the heaven and founded the

to the Lord: Biblical and Other Essays in Memory of Peter C. Craigie, ed. Lyle
Eslinger (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2009), 303–­18; Wilf Hildebrandt,
An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
1993), 30–­37; Bruce K. Waltke, “Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–­3,” BSac
132, no. 528 (1975): 333; among those opting for “wind,” see, e.g., J. M. Powis
Smith, “The Syntax and Meaning of Genesis 1:1–­3,” AJSLL 44, no. 2 (1928):
108–­15; Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: West-
minster John Knox, 1973), 107–­8; and H. M. Orlinsky, “The Plain Meaning of
Rûach in Genesis 1:2,” JQR 48, no 2 (1957): 174–­82. Philo believes that it is
indeed God’s Spirit that moves upon the face of the waters as opposed to a nat-
ural wind. Cf. Leg. 1.33.
75
On the motif of “creation and spirit” more broadly, see John W. Yates, The
Spirit and Creation in Paul (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 25.
76
See also Ezek 36:26–­35 (where the “spirit” brings about renewal with
creation and Edenic imagery). On the “spirit” and its use in Ezekiel, see Block,
“Prophet of the Spirit.”
77
Isa 32:1–8 and 44:1–5. See Job 26:13 (“By his ‫ רוח‬the heavens were made
fair”); see also Job 33:4 and 34:14–15 (emphasizing the gift and withdrawal of
‫ רוח‬signifying life and death); also Ps 33:6 and 104:29–30.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 35

earth” (Jos. Asen. 12.1–­3).78 We find in 2 Baruch that God’s “spirit

is the creator of life” (2 Bar. 23.5), who has “made firm the height
of the heaven by the spirit, who has called from the beginning of the
world that which did not yet exist” (2 Bar. 21.4).79 The Qumran
community also connects the divine creative work with the activity of
the Holy Spirit.80
But it is Philo, above the rest, who gives the creative power of
pneuma pride of place.81 Perhaps partly due to the influence Stoic
thinkers had on Philo, the pneuma becomes a central determiner
shaping his many reflections on God’s creation and re-­creative activ-
ity on the world.82 “For man was not created out of the earth alone,”
writes Philo, “but also of divine Spirit” (QG 1.51). Philo, in line with
Stoic pneumatology, invests pneuma with an intelligent organizing
quality which thus determines the formation and constitution of the
created order.83 So, commenting on Genesis 1:2, “the spirit of God”
(τὸ τοῦ θείου πνεῦμα) is that “by which all things are made secure . . .

78
On the pairing of “spirit” and “life” in the Second Temple literature, see
also Sib. Or. 4.46; Jos. Asen. 12.2; 16.4; 2 Macc 7.22–­23; 14:46; Apoc. Mos.
43.5; also T. Jud. 24.2.
79
A similar idea is found in Sir 16:24–­26 (“I will pour out my spirit by
weight, and by measure will I declare my knowledge. When God created His
works from the beginning, after making them, he assigned them portions”).
80
E.g., 4Q422, 7 (“his work which he had done, and [his] Holy Spirit”);
also 4Q22, 5; 4Q509, 97–­98. See also the discussion by Andrew D. Pitts and
Seth Pollinger in “The Spirit in Second Temple Jewish Monotheism and the Ori-
gins of Early Christology,” in Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social
and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Andrew
W. Pitts (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 2:158.
81
On the subject of Philo and his writings on creation, see the study by
Jonathan D. Worthington, Creation in Paul and Philo: The Beginning and Before
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011).
82
On Stoic influences on Philo’s cosmology, see, e.g., Anthony A. Long,
“Philo on Stoic Physics,” in Philo of Alexandria and Post-­Aristotelian Philosophy,
ed. Francesca Alesse (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 121–­40; and Roberto Radice, “Philo
and Stoic Ethics: Reflections on the Idea of Freedom,” in Philo of Alexandria and
Post-­Aristotelian Philosophy, ed. Francesca Alesse (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 141–­68;
also Wis 1:7 (“The spirit of the Lord has filled the world”) and Wis 7:22 (deem-
ing the “spirit of wisdom” [πνεῦμα σοφία] to be “the fashioner of all things”).
83
E.g., Gig. 22–­23, 27. On the relationship of pneuma and “wisdom” in
connection with the creation motif in Philo, see Pitts and Pollinger, “Spirit in
 36 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

and of those things which are in the air and are in all mixtures of
plants and animals” (QG 2.28). Philo considers pneuma to be the
divine reasoning principle by which God and the world is rendered
able to interrelate. Because of this reasoning in Philo, Isaacs remarks
that “creation is viewed by Philo, not only as an event in the past, but
as a continuous activity.”84

2.2.2. The Exodus Theophanies of Cloud and Fire

The founding narratives of Israel are filled with iconic symbols of God’s
leading presence. In the Exodus stories in particular these include the
pillar of cloud and fire, the cloud of God’s presence, the face of God’s
presence, and the angel of the presence.85 Notably, the Pentateuch does
not identify these theophanic symbols with ruach.86 But we know that
later texts (including Paul) do precisely this—­that is, they connect the
symbols of God’s leading presence with the “Spirit of the Lord.”87
One notable example can be found in Isaiah 63:9–­14:88

In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his

presence saved them.89

Second Temple Jewish Monotheism,” 2:155–­58; also Levison, Spirit in First-­

Century, 151–­58.
84
Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 44.
85
Cf. Exod 13:20; 14:1; 16:10; 23:20–­24; 33:4–­8, 12–­14; 40:34–­38.
86
E.g., Neve, Spirit of God in the Old Testament, 73–­74.
87
For Paul, see 2 Cor 3:15–­18, linking the glory of the Lord with the Spirit.
There is also good reason to view 1 Cor 10:1–­4, with its references to baptism
in the cloud and baptism into Moses, as functioning in parallel with baptism in
one Spirit into one body, Christ (1 Cor 12:12–­13) (see § 4.3.4; 5.1.2). Romans
8:14–­16 similarly describes God’s sons in terms of those who are “led by the
Spirit of God” in the context of “slavery,” which may itself invoke Exodus imag-
ery for this reconstituted family of God.
88
See John R. Levison, The Holy Spirit before Christianity (Waco: Baylor
University Press, 2019); also John R. Levison, “The Spirit in Its Second Tem-
ple Context: An Exegetical Analysis of the Pneumatology of N. T. Wright,” in
God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology
of N. T. Wright, ed. Michael F. Bird, Christoph Heilig, and J. Thomas Hewitt
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 439–­62.
89
The NRSV translates this as “It was no messenger or angel, but his pres-
ence that saved them,” which follows the Greek translation. With Levison, I find
the translation “angel of his presence” to comport better with the remainder of
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 37

But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit;

therefore he became their enemy; he himself fought against
them.
Then they remembered the days of old, of Moses his
servant.
Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea with
the shepherds of his flock?
Where is the one who put within them his holy spirit?
Who caused his glorious arm to march at the right hand of
Moses,
Who divided the waters before them, . . . Who led them
through the depths?
The spirit of the Lord gave them rest.
Thus you led your people, to make yourself a glorious name.

While we find no indication in the Pentateuch that the symbols of

God’s presence could be so naturally connected with God’s Spirit,
Levison has argued that the exilic pressures that forged this Isaianic
text occasioned the need for a reinterpretation of the Exodus events
to reprise on their own current horizon—­this time in terms of the
leading of God’s Spirit.90
Haggai 2:3–­5 reflects the same phenomenon:91
Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory?
How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as noth-
ing? Yet take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take
courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take
courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work,
for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, according to the
promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My
spirit [stands] among you; do not fear.

As with Isaiah 64, the invocation of Exodus imagery occasioned by

the disillusionment of Israel’s troubles is evident in the Haggai pas-
sage as well. Levison urges that the emphasis on the Spirit’s stand-
ing [‫ ]עצד‬is unique in the Hebrew Bible, but owes its imagery here

the text’s Exodus imagery (despite the concession that the phrase is not attested
elsewhere). See the discussion in Levison, Holy Spirit before Christianity, 32–­37.
90
Levison, Holy Spirit before Christianity, 43–­53.
91
Levison, Holy Spirit before Christianity, 74–­83.
 38 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

to the Red Sea narrative, where “the angel of God who was going
before the Israelite army moved and went behind them; and the pil-
lar of cloud moved from in front of them and stood behind them”
(Exod 14:19–20). In both instances, the Exodus symbols of God’s
presence are retrieved and recharacterized as pneuma to produce
fresh symbols of hope in the current distress of the communities
producing these texts.

2.2.3. Glory
The relationship between “spirit” and the “glory” of YHWH is
an important one to trace in the LXX. We know from 2 Corinthi-
ans 3:18 that for Paul, “spirit” and “glory” bear a close relation-
ship. We also know from Paul’s letters that “spirit” and “glory”
are among a narrow field of words that can stand in a genitive
relationship with both God and Christ, which can serve to “sign
the presence of God.”92 In the Hebrew Bible, the interplay of God’s
cloud and glory appears at the tent of meeting (‫))אהל מועד‬, the tab�
ernacle, and temple (e.g., Exod 33:7–18; 40:36–38; Num 16:42;
1 Kgs 8:3–13) and forms a recurring set of images that signify the
center of Israel’s cultic complex. The crowning moment of King
Solomon’s dedication of the temple is that “a cloud filled the house
of the Lord so that the priests could not stand to minister because
of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the
Lord” (1 Kgs 8:10–11).
Importantly, the latter prophets reflect a development which
begins to identify “spirit” with this temple presence of God’s glory.
We already noted that Haggai 2:1–9 includes the promise that God’s
“spirit remains [stands] in [Israel’s] midst” (v. 5) and God “will fill
this house with glory” (v. 7). But it is in Ezekiel where this pairing
finds its preeminent expression.93 There are significant occurrences of

92
Cf. Carey C. Newman, Paul’s Glory-­Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric
(Leiden: Brill, 1992), 163 (also identifying “power,” “word,” “gospel,” and
“presence” as related words in Pauline usage that signify divine presence).
93
Cf. De Vries, “Glory and Spirit 1”; the study is continued in Pieter de Vries,
“The Relationship between the Glory of YHWH and the Spirit of YHWH in
Ezekiel 33–­48, Part 2,” Old Testament Essays 28, no. 2 (2015): 326–­50; see also
John T. Strong, “God’s Kābôd: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book of Ezekiel,”
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 39

‫ רוח‬in Ezekiel that consistently relate with the apprehension of the

glory of YHWH (i.e., Ezek 1–3, 8–11, 36–39, and 40–48).94 Ezekiel
underscores the special relationship between the Spirit and the glory
of YHWH by reserving the divine visions of the glory of YHWH only
when the prophet is described as lifted up (‫ )נשא‬in the Spirit (Ezek
3:12, 14; 8:3; 11:1, 24; 43:5). “The Spirit lifted me up,” reports
the prophet, “and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the
glory of the Lord filled the temple” (Ezek 43:5).95 Importantly, in
Ezekiel 8:7–16, the movements of the prophet (lifting up) are shifted
from a feminine to the masculine forms of the verb to agree with the
agent of the prophet’s movement—not the “spirit of YHWH” but
rather the “glory of the God of Israel [‫]כבוד אלהי ישראל‬.” De Vries
contends that the experience of Ezekiel’s viewing the glory by the
“spirit” of the Lord becomes paradigmatic for Israel, upon whom
God will pour out his “spirit” as a prerequisite for the return of God’s
glory with Israel in their restoration.96
Following the trajectory of the prophets, the intertestamental Jew-
ish literature further establishes the associative connection between
the Spirit and God’s temple presence.97 A dramatic example of this
comes from Josephus and his account of Solomon’s temple dedica-
tion speech, where he inserts a new reference to pneuma even though
the original makes no reference to ruach (‫)רוח‬: “I humbly beseech
thee, that thou wilt let some portion of thy Spirit come down and
inhabit in this temple, that thou mayest appear to be with us upon
earth” (Ant. 8.114; cf. 1 Kgs 8:29; 2 Chr 6:20). Given that Josephus
follows the Bible’s understanding of the temple as the place where
God dwells, “Spirit” should best be understood here as a circumlo-
cution for God.98 Consistent with this, later rabbinic commentary

in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Margaret

S. Odell and John T. Strong (Atlanta: SBL, 2000), 69–­95.
94
De Vries, “Glory and Spirit 1,” 113.
95
Note that in the Valley of Dry Bones passage, where the glory of the Lord
is not perceived, the “spirit” is said to have “brought out” (‫ )יצא‬the prophet
rather than being lifted up (Ezek 37:1).
96
De Vries, “Glory and Spirit 2,” 347.
97
E.g., LAB 18.10; Apoc. Zeph. 1; Apoc. Sedr. 1.18.
98
Cf. Isaacs, Concept of Spirit, 26.
 40 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

can pair shekinah (presence) with “Holy Spirit” without any apparent
difference in meaning.99
Of significant importance is the fact that Josephus inserts the ref-
erence to the dwelling Spirit precisely in the place where the underly-
ing Greek translations make a reference to the eyes of God (τοῦ εἶναι
ὀφθαλμούς σου ἠνεῳγμένους εἰς τὸν οἶκον τοῦτον) (1 Kgs 8:29).
There is an identifiable practice in LXX translations to create a degree
of distance with references made to the dwelling (‫ )ׁשׁכן‬of God when
the term occurs in the MT—preferring to translate ‫ ׁשׁכן‬in terms of
the place of God’s invocation (ἐπικληθήσομαι) (Exod 29:45–46), or
in terms of the place God may be seen (ὀφθήσομαι) (Exod 25:8–9).100
In Domenico Lo Sardo’s estimation of the Greek and Hebrew texts,
he observes a calculated avoidance of describing God’s dwelling (‫)ׁשׁכן‬
among Israel, most likely out of some form of theological anxiety in
articulating an excessive closeness to the divine presence.101 What we
find in Josephus’ pneuma reference with respect to the temple may
reflect his interaction with this tradition of addressing God’s dwelling
in terms of the eyes of God or the beholding of God.102

99
E.g., Mek. Beshallah 2 (on Exod 14:13); Jer. Sukkah 55a; Šabb. 30b; see
also Best, “Pneuma,” 223; Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries, 437. Best spec-
ulates that shekinah would be a much more problematic idea to translate for the
readers of Josephus; furthermore, the resonances with Stoic pneumatology as
sharing the material of heaven and earth might help communicate the idea of
a “portion of Thy Spirit” which fills heaven but is also manifest in the earthly
temple (223).
100
But see Lev 9:6, where the LXX indicates that “you will see the glory of
the Lord” and the MT agrees, indicating the verb in terms of seeing or behold-
ing God’s glory: ‫וירא אליכם כבוד יהוה‬. On whether this constitutes textual or
literary criticism on the part of the translators, see Domenico Lo Sardo, “Ex
25:8–9 MT-LXX: Textual Differences or Different Hermeneutics? The Divine
Dwelling on the Mountain and/or in a Sanctuary,” LASBF 69 (2019): 79–98.
101
Lo Sardo, “Divine Dwelling,” 95 (“The evidence leaves no doubt about
the distance from the Greek text to the Hebrew understanding about the modal-
ity of the divine presence dwelling. . . . The Hebrew verb ‫ ׁשׁכן‬expresses far more
as YHWH decides to make itself near or present among his people and there-
fore the choice implies a theological understanding of God himself. LXX prefers
to remain on the doorstep of the sanctuary, meaning the liturgical dimension
and there to be able to invoke YHWH, but without going beyond the allowed,
because God is and remains ὁ ὤν”).
102
Cf. Rev 7:17, where “the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth”
is identified with the “seven eyes” of the Lamb.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 41

2.3. The Spirit of Divine Attributes in Qumran

As was briefly mentioned in the earlier section concerning the “spirit”
passages in the texts associated with the community at Qumran,103
there is a propensity beginning with the Jewish biblical and extrabib-
lical literature to use spirit as a way of naming particular attributes
(even divinely imparted attributes) among persons—­most commonly,
a “spirit of wisdom.” Isaiah 11:2 represents this characteristic of spirit
language well: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of
wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit
of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” The OT occurrences of this
manner of speaking of the spirit are infrequent compared with the
density of this type of language in the Dead Sea Scrolls.104
In this body of literature, references to the “spirit” can often refer
to the “Spirit of God” as much as it can a “sanctified human dis-
position,” among other options.105 An important example for this
phenomena is the Treatise on the Two Spirits (1QS 3.13–­4:26),
where God appoints two spirits (initially designated as “truth and
falsehood”) which exert their influence upon the world.106 These two
spirits were created by God to form “the cornerstone of every deed,
their impulses the premise of every action” (1QS 3.25–­26). While an

103
See § 2.1.3.
104
We might also point to its occasional use in the writings of both Philo and
Josephus. For Philo, see, e.g., Gig. 23 (referring to Bezalel and how God “filled
him with his Holy Spirit, and with wisdom, and understanding, and knowledge
to be able to devise every work”) and Gig. 47 (“divine spirit of wisdom” [σοφίας
πνεῦμα θεῖον]); for Josephus, e.g., Ant. 10.238 (10.11.3) (expounding on Dan-
iel’s fullness of the “divine spirit” accompanied by wisdom).
105
Cf. Sekki, Meaning of Ruaḥ at Qumran, 207; Émile Puech, “L’esprit saint
à Qumran,” Liber Annuum 49 (1999): 283–­97.
106
On the tradition history of the Treatise, see Charlotte Hempel, “The
Treatise on the Two Spirits and the Literary History of the Rule of the Com-
munity,” in Dualism in Qumran, ed. Géza G. Xeravits (London: T&T Clark,
2010), 102–­20. Conceptually, there is a tension that scholars have identified
between the “Spirit of Truth” of 1QS 3 and the eschatological “holy spirit”
in 1QS 4.20–­23: the former described as primordial and directive over the
Sons of Light and the latter as that which purifies and reveals wisdom to
the community. Frey concludes that the Two Spirits Treatise should be best
understood as an “independent . . . sapiental passage of pre-­sectarian origin
which was incorporated into the manuscript 1QS.” Frey, “View of the Spirit,”
250–­51.
 42 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

angel of darkness allies with dark spirits to “cause the Sons of Light to
stumble” (1QS 3.24), “God and the Angel of his Truth” assist all the
sons of Light (1QS 3.24–­25). This spirit of truth engenders “humil-
ity, patience . . . and powerful wisdom resonating to each of God’s
deeds” (1QS 4.2–­4). Conversely, the “spirit of falsehood” works to
result in all manner of wickedness, neglect of righteousness, lying,
and other forms of error (1QS 4.9–­26). “God has appointed these
spirits as equals until the time of decree and renewal,” and they are to
exercise “dominion over humanity, so imparting knowledge of good
and evil” according to the “measure of which spirit predominates in
the person” (1QS 4.25–­26).
The angelic reality behind these spirits is confirmed in the type of
cosmological angelology that pervades the War Scroll. The Scroll opens
with this very register: “The beginning of the dominion of the Sons of
Light shall be undertaken against the forces of the Sons of Darkness,
the army of Belial.”107 Similar features are also observed in the Songs
of the Sabbath Sacrifice, which entail a rich pattern of angelology and
macrocosmic temple motifs.108 Importantly, while the personified
reality of the spirits can be identified in these texts, even in terms of
“dominion” over the hearts of people, we do not find an articulated
sense of ecstatic or mantic forms of prophecy induced by the spirit that
we find in other Hellenistic Jewish texts. The power of the spirits is on
the level of influence and manifests itself in communal life patterns.109

107
1QM 1:1; 3:1ff.
108
See Carol Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition
(Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 23–­38; James R. Davila, “The Macrocosmic
Temple, Scriptural Exegesis, and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” DSD 9
(2002): 1–­19.
109
The sectarian texts also emphasize the revelatory aspect of the spirit in
revealing wisdom to the community. See Frey, “View of the Spirit,” 256, 259–­60;
cf. Philip S. Alexander, “The Demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead
Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. Peter Flint and
James C. Vanderkam (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 331–­53. This is in stark contrast to
the accounts of prophetic activity generated by pneuma in the texts of Hellenistic
Judaism, where the divine spirit (τοῦ θείου πνεύματος) can be described in terms
of evicting the mind and producing the prophetic speech accompanied with the
phenomena of ecstasy and inspired frenzy. Philo, Her. 264–­65; also Spec. 4.49;
Josephus, Ant. 4.118; 6.222. On the phenomena of ecstatic prophecy in Helle-
nistic Judaism, see Levison, “Debut of the Divine Spirit”; also the discussion in
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 43

Unlike the Two Spirits Treatise, the Hodayot lacks a similar

ordering principle of active spirits influencing others, but neverthe-
less abounds in references to spirits of particular inner dispositions.
“You have favored me with the spirit of knowledge,” the petitioner
prays (1QHa 6.36). A “spirit of your compassion” and a “spirit of
the righteous” (1( )‫רוח צדיק‬QHa 27 and 28) can also be found. As
in the Treatise of the Two Spirits, the spirits can also be negatively
presented. Hence there are references to a “spirit of error” (1QHa
8.24) or a “spirit of staggering” (1QHa 15.8).110 This piling on of
various dispositions and virtues (or vices) strung together in diverse
arrangements is a distinct feature of the sectarian texts.111 Newsom
recognizes in this syntactical tendency something quite important to
the logic of these texts concerning the larger, interconnected patterns
of behavior the community seeks to establish. Her comments deserve
being quoted in full:
Even at the level of syntax the passage [of the Two Spir-
its] claims that one cannot really know one thing without
knowing many other things and their relationships. Things
are joined together in webs of significance. If one wants to
know about human character or why the righteous sin, one
has to know about the plan of God for all of creation from
beginning to end. If one wants to know about the eter-
nal destiny of humankind, one will inevitably find one’s self
attending to concrete details of human behavior, to acts of
patience or greed.112

Clint Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma: Communication with the Spirit
World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 113–­44.
110
Other fragmentary occurrences throughout the corpus are harder to
reconstruct with confidence. But see 4Q230 f1.2 (“spirit of insolence”); 4Q230
f1.3 (“spirit of contempt”); 4Q257 5.7 (“spirit of falsehood”); 4Q269 f10ii.2
(“spirit of humility”); 4Q444 f14i+5.3 (“spirit of knowledge and understand-
ing”); 4Q510 f1.6 (“spirit of understanding”).
111
This is a feature shared with Pauline discourse. For example, Paul talks of
a “suffering that produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and
character produces hope” (Rom 5:3–­4) and similarly the “law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus [that sets people free] from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).
112
Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and
Community at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 80.
 44 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Newsom’s comments on the “concrete details of human behavior” and

the interrelated nature of their ideas touch on something that is quite
important in the logic of spirit discourse in Qumran. What is empha-
sized is not prophetic speech, nor charismatic actions, but rather a puri-
fying spirit (which is decidedly eschatological in nature), which reveals
the true nature of the law for the community and is prevailed upon to
assist the community to live in discernible patterns of righteous living.
Jörg Frey observes that the “spirit reveals God’s will, wisdom, and plan;
that acts verbally and leads to a bodily life in accord with the insight
gained. The spirit inserts into the community.”113

2.4. Oneness, “Monotheism,” and Pneuma

Because “oneness” forms the other half of our leading theme of “one
Spirit,” this discussion must also draw out aspects of this motif from
the Jewish textual sources. What we find is that this material does
not collocate spirit with oneness directly; that pairing is a particularly
Pauline formulation (although as we will see, there are topical simi-
larities of unity and pneuma collocations in the Stoic sources). Conse-
quently, the significance of oneness here requires that it be developed
in its own contexts and points of emphases.

2.4.1. One God, One People in Jewish Literature

The central importance of monotheism for both ancient Israel and
Second Temple Jews is well-­established.114 Deuteronomy 6:4 supplies
the foundational recitation:
‫ׁשׁמע יׂשׂראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד‬

How this is best translated is of significant debate. The traditional

rendering, “YHWH our God, YHWH is one,” so it has been argued
by Levenson and others, reflects a later philosophical monism rather
than the monotheism of covenant loyalty which more appropriately

113
Frey, “View of the Spirit,” 260.
114
The contours of what monotheism entails (and in turn denies) both in
belief and practice throughout Israel’s history are, however, of significant debate.
See, e.g., Nathan MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 22–­57.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 45

informs the Shema of ancient Israel and its early literary traditions.115
Accordingly, it is offered that the better rendering is: YHWH is God,
YHWH alone.116 In either rendering, it is undisputed that the Shema
forms a foundational principle for Judaism—­ a prayer recited by
observant Jews each morning and evening. 117

Important for our purposes is the way the biblical motif of oneness
expresses itself in two related senses. To use Bauckham’s formulation,
“the word can point to the uniqueness of a single person or thing:
there is only one of them. Or the same word can point to the unity of a
group of persons or things: the group is united rather than divided.”118
Certainly in the prophetic material and in later Jewish texts, God’s
“oneness” was discussed in light of the sectarian rivalry within Israel.
Thus, the motif of oneness is often raised in connection with the
divided kingdom and the fitting remedy that north and south be
brought together as one as God himself is “one.”119 So Ezekiel,
speaking of the gathering of Israel and Judah, prophesies as follows:
I will make them one nation [ἔθνος ἓν | ‫ ]לגוי אחדל‬in the
land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king
over them all. Never again shall they be two nations and
never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. . . . My

115
Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion (New York: HarperCollins, 1987),
52–­86 (arguing that early tradition within the Pentateuch [e.g., Exod 20:3;
15:11] assumes the reality of other “gods” and that YHWH’s “oneness” is more
properly understood as a framing of covenantal loyalty); cf. Mark S. Smith, The
Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic
Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
116
But see R. W. L. Moberly, “‘Yahweh Is One’: The Translation of the Shema,”
in Studies in the Pentateuch, ed. J. A. Emerton (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 209–­15 (cri-
tiquing this rendering as untenable based on the nature of Hebrew idiom and the
internal usage of the words in question throughout Deuteronomy).
117
Josephus, Ant. 4.212 (“Let everyone commemorate before God the ben-
efits which he bestowed upon them at their deliverance out of the land of Egypt,
and this twice every day, both when the day begins and when the hour of sleep
comes on”); also Let. Aris. 160; 1QS 10.10; also David Instone-­Brewer, Prayer
and Agriculture, vol. 1, Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testa-
ment (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004).
118
Richard Bauckham, Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015), 23.
119
Bauckham, Gospel of Glory, 27.
 46 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

servant David shall be king over them; and they shall all have
one shepherd. (Ezek 37:22, 24a)

The same ideas can be seen in passages such as Micah 2:12, Hosea
1:11, and Isaiah 45:20, where either the word ‘eḥād (‫ )אחד‬or yaḥad
(‫ )יחד‬bears the sense of bringing “together into one.”120
In Second Temple Jewish literature, the idea that God is “one”
generated similar patterns of thinking which connected divine oneness
with a corresponding unity that is befitting his people. “For we are all
a people of the Name,” 2 Baruch 48:23–­24 explains, “we, who have
received one Law from the One.” The comments from Josephus also
captures this well: “Let there be then one city of the land of Canaan. . . .
Let there also be one temple therein, and one altar. . . . And let there
be neither an altar nor a temple in any other city; for God is but one,
and the nation of the Hebrews is but one.”121 The insistence that there
be no other temple in any other city is significant not least because
Josephus knew about the Leontopolis temple (e.g., Ant. 13.72; JW
7.420–­32).122 His point was likely that the Jerusalem temple alone was
of singular importance, and itself worthy and analogous with the sin-
gularity of God (remembering, of course, that Josephus writes post-­
70 CE, when the temple lay in ruins).123 Josephus elsewhere discusses
the idea of “one temple” itself as a unifying point for humanity. “One
temple of the one God—­for like is always attracted to like, common to
all people as belonging to the common God of all.”124

120
Bauckham, Gospel of Glory, 26–­27. Some have suggested that the Yaḥad
community at Qumran was so named as to reflect the identity of the “one” God.
So C. T. R. Hayward, “‘The LORD Is One’: Reflections on the Theme of Unity in
John’s Gospel from a Jewish Perspective,” in Early Jewish and Christian Monothe-
ism, ed. Loren T. Stuckenbruck and Wendy North (London: T&T Clark, 2004),
142–­49; also in Andrew Byers, “The One Body of the Shema in 1 Corinthians: An
Ecclesiology of Christological Monotheism,” NTS 62, no. 4 (2016): 521.
121
Josephus, Ant. 4.200.
122
On the Leontopolis temple, he writes, “Onias took the place and built
a temple, an altar to God, like indeed to that in Jerusalem, but smaller and
poorer. . . . Onias found other Jews like to himself, together with priests and
Levites, that there performed divine service.” Ant. 13.72.
123
See John M. G. Barclay, Flavius Josephus: Against Apion: Translation and
Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 279n769.
124
Ag. Ap. 2.23 (193).
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 47

These sentiments are matched by Philo, who explains that “since

God is one, there should be also only one temple” (ἐπειδὴ εἷς ἐστιν
ὁ θεός, καὶ ἱερὸν ἕν εἶναι).125 Philo, furthermore, connected the
motif of oneness and its resulting unity with loving solidarity to his
fellow people.
For our lawgiver [Moses] was aware beforehand, as was nat-
ural that one who was a countryman and a relation, and who
had also an especial share in the sublimest relationship of
all, (and that sublimest of relationships is one constitution
[πολιτεία μία] and the same law, and one God whose chosen
nation is a peculiar people) . . . he would even give his own
property to those who were in need of it, making his own
wealth common.126

But God’s oneness can yield a range of other important exhortative

material besides corporate unity. One of the most common chains
of reasoning in Scripture that emerges out of the recital of Jewish
monotheism is the injunction against idolatry. Following Deuter-
onomy 6:4 and its pronouncement of one God, the text reserves
its sternest warning for idolatry: “Do not follow other gods, any of
the gods of the peoples who are all around you, because the Lord
your God, who is present with you, is a jealous God. The anger of
the Lord your God would be kindled against you and he would
destroy you from the face of the earth” (6:14–­15). It is from here
that the text moves to the discussion of the ḥerem and the destruc-
tion of neighboring lands—­principally on the grounds that these
nations would cause Israel to turn away and serve other gods.127 The
fraught history of Israel with idolatry and their loyalty to the one
God is among the most identifiable themes in the Law, Writings,
and Prophets.128

125
Philo, Spec. 1.67.
126
Philo, Spec. 4.159; see also Virt. 34–­35.
127
See R. W. L. Moberly, “Toward an Interpretation of the Shema,” in Theo-
logical Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, ed. Christopher R. Seitz and
Kathryn Greene-­McCreight (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 124–­44 (discuss-
ing the conceptual link between the Shema and ḥerem).
128
E.g., Deut 32:21; 2 Kgs 17:15; 2 Chr 33:15; Isa 45:20; 57:13; Ezek
36:25; Hos 8:4.
 48 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

2.5. Conclusions
Our examination of the Jewish biblical and extrabiblical texts observes
that all of the reviewed literary corpora appreciate the externally
observable effects of the pneuma on persons and other phenomena.
It is the Greek and Roman philosophical and medical texts (discussed
in the subsequent chapter), however, that insist on the corporeality
of pneuma itself. The Jewish sources, even those that evince Stoic
influences, display more circumspection in describing “spirit” as
capable of producing physical effects without necessarily itself being
marked by materiality. We also traced the variety of ways that Spirit
represented divine power or presence in their distinct registers. While
some of the prophets, such as Ezekiel and Haggai, gesture at the con-
nection between God’s Spirit and God’s theophanic presence, Jose-
phus, importantly, makes this connection explicit in his translation of
Solomon’s dedication prayer.
Notably, while all of the later Jewish texts continue the scriptural
tradition of linking the pneuma with prophetic speech, Philo and
Josephus share a distinct emphasis on the oracular and ecstatic forms
of prophecy based on the activity of the pneuma—­an understanding
of prophecy more in line with the Pythia, who could serve as passive
vessels for the oracles of Apollo at Delphi.129 This is not shared by the
texts associated with the Qumran corpus, whose view of the Spirit is
significantly more directed toward revealing insight into the proper
manner of walking in accordance to the Torah and how the righteous
standards of God are formed within the community.
One area that will prove of importance throughout the balance
of the study is the relationship between Spirit and wisdom developed
in the Hellenistic Jewish literature. Wisdom in particular speaks of
a personified Wisdom in terms distinctly marked by pneuma. This
pneumatic wisdom structures the universe and holds it together, but
it also microcosmically counsels the hearts of the godly. Wisdom is

129
Philo, QE 2.105; Her. 69; 263; Josephus, Ant. 4.118; 6.222. On the
nature of prophecy in Philo and Josephus, see Levison, Spirit in First-­Century,
131–­77; also Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma, 113–­44; on Paul, see
Charles H. Talbert, “Paul’s Understanding of the Holy Spirit: The Evidence of
1 Corinthians 12–­14,” PRSt 11, no. 4 (1984): 95–­108.
Jewish Background Material for One Spirit 49

also closely connected with the rightly oriented knowledge of God,

which in turn establishes the basis for the right worship of God over
against the idolatrous pattern of the “nations” (cf. Wis 13–­15; Rom
1:19–­25).130 Incidentally, this relationship between wisdom, spirit,
knowledge, and the proper worship of God is a related theme that
finds development in Pauline thought. Paul’s own discussion against
idolatry is similarly rooted in those who “possess knowledge” (1 Cor
8:4, 7, 20; Wis 15:2–­3). Importantly, it is the Spirit for Paul that
speaks and inspires the confession of Jesus as Lord, in contrast to the
pagan “idols that could not speak” and restores the community as a
worshipping temple in the Lord (1 Cor 12:2; 14:26; 3:16).
Turning specifically to the texts associated with the sect at Qum-
ran, it is here where we most readily find parallels with the early Chris-
tian nomenclature of “holy spirit.”131 These sectarian texts distinguish
themselves by their profound attraction to Spirit as an eschatological
phenomenon that is poured out on a distinct group of people—­a fea-
ture that is observed in no other corpora of the Second Temple period
except early Christian biblical texts. Furthermore, these texts reveal a
distinct proclivity to Ezekiel 36 and Jeremiah 31 in focusing on the
inner realities of the Spirit in shaping and chastening the recipient of
the Spirit unto righteous living.132 These texts connect the revelatory
function of the Spirit, not with the more oracular or visionary modes
(as in Philo or Josephus), but with the wisdom that obtains from a
proper understanding of the right way of walking—­what the sectar-
ian leaders might call halakhah (e.g., CD 7.4).

130
On the scholarly discussion concerning Wisdom 13–­15 and Romans 1 on
the topic of idolatry, see Linebaugh, God, Grace, and Righteousness, 93–­115.
131
See § 2.1.4.
132
Cf. 1QS 4.20–­21; 1QHa 8.19–­20; 29; 21.34 with Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 3:3–­6.
 3
Stoic and Greco-­Roman
Background Material for
One Spirit
God is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what I
mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who marks our
good and bad deeds, and is our guardian.
Seneca, Ep. 41

3.1. Stoic Pneumatology in Wide-­Angle Perspective

Increasingly, Pauline scholars have appreciated the shared features
of Paul’s spirit language when compared against Stoic literature.1
Scholars such as Troels Engberg-­Pedersen have gone as far as find-
ing the Pauline texts to indicate a “Stoic-­like, philosophical under-
standing of the Pauline pneuma,”2 which he believes Paul formed by
drawing from a “materialistic and monistic Stoicism” as his “basic,

1
Among the growing list of examples, see, e.g., Troels Engberg-­Pedersen,
Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2011); Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and
Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2010); Michelle V. Lee, Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Philip Francis Esler, “Paul
and Stoicism: Romans 12 as a Test Case,” NTS 50, no. 1 (2004): 106–­24. Cf.
George H. van Kooten, “St. Paul on Soul, Spirit, and the Inner Man,” in The
Afterlife of the Platonic Soul, ed. John M. Dillon and Maha Elkaisy-­Friemuth
(Leiden: Brill, 2009).
2
Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 18.

51
 52 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

philosophical reference point.”3 More recently, the pneumatolog-

ical accounts from scholars within or adjacent to the Paul-­within-­
Judaism school have relied heavily upon Stoic accounts of a material
pneuma to account for Paul’s view of the pneuma as establishing a
pneumatic basis for gentile inclusion into God’s covenant blessing.4
Given the importance these studies place upon Stoic pneumatology
for providing the proper context for Paul’s own understanding of
the pneuma, the majority of this chapter will be devoted to better
understanding Stoic physics and pneumatology. In doing so, this
chapter will also evaluate evidence from other Greek philosophical
traditions concerning pneuma (such as ancient medical texts and
the Greek magical papyri).
Founded by Zeno of Citium (355–­263 BCE) and deriving its
name from the Stoa Poikile (Painted Stoa) of Athens, where the
teachings were conducted, Stoicism was a practical philosophy that
drew from and interacted heavily with the ideas of Pythagoras, Plato,
and Aristotle as well as its more contemporary movements, Epicure-
anism and Cynicism. The principal sources within the Stoic corpus
arise from the writings of Diogenes Laertius and his reporting of
the lives of Zeno, Cleanthes (331–­232 BCE), and Chrysippus (ca.
280–­207 BCE). The Roman Stoicism more contemporary to Paul
includes the reports and reflections of Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus
Aurelius.5
The historical evidence of the compatibility between Paul and
the Stoics is demonstrated somewhat by Origen’s doxographical
report that Celsus “is of the opinion that when we say ‘God is Spirit
(πνεῦμα),’ there is no difference between us and the Greek Stoics,

3
Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 4.
4
See in particular Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2016); and Stanley Stowers, “The Dilemma of
Paul’s Physics: Features Stoic-­Platonist or Platonist-­Stoic?” in From Stoicism to
Platonism: The Development of Philosophy, 100 BCE–­100 CE, ed. Troels Engberg-­
Pedersen (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 231–­53; also the dis-
cussion in § 6.3.
5
For a topical compendium of these works, see A. A. Long and D. N. Sed-
ley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1, Translations of the Principal Sources, with
Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987),
158–­429. On Roman Stoicism as its own distinct movement, see Thorsteinsson,
Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 53

who say ‘God is πνεῦμα, interpenetrating everything and containing

everything within itself.”6 Indeed, the evidence weighs in favor of
Paul coming into contact with Stoic ideas. In the era of the early
Christians, Stoicism and later Roman Stoicism likely emerged as the
closest candidate for a popular philosophy.7 Sedley, seeing evidence
of the wide adaptation of Stoic thinking from Roman emperors
down to slaves, reckons that “so widespread was its influence that
its terminology and methodology became the common currency
even of those who opposed its teachings.”8 Roman Stoicism, the
era which saw the height of the tradition’s influence, was taught in
public spaces, in keeping with the practice of its founder, Zeno of
Citium, who himself taught in the Greek Stoa (situated in the ancient
Agora in Athens).9 Paul’s citation of one of the “poets” of Athens (at
least according to Acts 17), “for we are his offspring,” comes either
from the Stoic writings of Aratus or from Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus,
evincing contact with the material (if not awareness of its more spe-
cific features and claims).10 Likewise, evidence of the presence and
influence of medical thinkers, including the Pneumatists, is found in
major cosmopolitan areas throughout the Roman Empire, extending
through Asia Minor, including notably Roman Corinth.11 Such evi-

6
Origen, Cels. 6.71. Origen quickly dismisses the notion, explaining that
“the oversight and providence of God does permeate all things, but not like the
spirit of the Stoics.” Accordingly, the claim of Celsus concerning the similitude
of Christian views on the pneuma with the Stoic view is not widely shared. See
the discussion on Celsus in Terence Paige, “Who Believes in ‘Spirit’? Πνεῦµα
in Pagan Usage and Implications for the Gentile Christian Mission,” HTR 95,
no. 4 (2002): 426.
7
Hans Josef Klauck deems the influence of Stoicism to be so extensive
that the essential Stoic ideas were deemed to have “become commonplaces” by
the second century CE. The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to
Graeco-­Roman Religions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 337.
8
David Sedley, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Philos-
ophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 165.
9
As a testament to the popular influence of Stoicism, Athens erected a statue
at public expense in Zeno’s honor upon his death commemorating his “virtue”
and his “teaching.” Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.1.10–­11.
10
Aratus, Phaen. 1–­5.
11
See Paul Mark Robertson, “De-­Spiritualizing Pneuma: Modernity, Reli-
gion, and Anachronism in the Study of Paul,” Method and Theory in the Study of
Religion 26, no. 4–­5 (2014): 374–­75; see also Heinrich von Staden, Herophilus:
 54 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

dence indeed makes it difficult to maintain the position that Paul’s

view of the pneuma (and especially the views of his believing commu-
nities) was effectively cloistered from the reach of these ideas and its
distinct coloring on how pneuma was to be used and understood in
public discourse.
The attention of our review of the material will be tailored to
the themes named in the previous chapter: spirit, divinity, and one-
ness (although here in its distinct Stoic register).12 Geoffrey Lloyd
reminds us that when it comes to ancient Greek literature on pneuma,
wind, and even respiratory breathing, there was no stable consen-
sus or consistency in these terms.13 Even when one analyzes a sin-
gle group of literature (i.e., the Stoics), Levison similarly warns that
“the conception of pneuma underwent significant metamorphoses
in the first two centuries of Stoic thought, due in no small measure
to the growing stature of the Alexandrian physicians who accorded
increasing significance to the pneuma in human physiology.”14 None
of the foregoing should dissuade an attempt at drawing together a
constructive account of Stoic pneumatology, but the necessary pre-
cautions are raised in advance.

3.2. The Spirit and Divinity in Stoic Literature

3.2.1. God, Pneuma, and Stoicism

A reliable point of entry for understanding the Stoic system of
thought is to understand its emphasis on the deeply interconnected
nature of all things, not only cosmological realities and anthropo-
logical beings, but also divine beings and personified ideals such as

The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1989), 459–­60 (reporting an expansion of the medical schools from Alex-
andria into Asia Minor in the mid-­first century BCE).
12
For further integrated discussion of Stoic cosmology, see G. Verbeke,
L’évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma du stoïcisme à saint Augustin (Paris: D.
de Brouwer, 1945); see also David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977). See also Ricardo Salles, God and
Cosmos in Stoicism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
13
Geoffrey Lloyd, “Pneuma between Body and Soul,” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 13 (2007): S135–­36.
14
John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009),
138.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 55

Nature, Fate, and Wisdom. David Sedley explains that “the Stoic
system prides itself on being an organic whole, so interwoven that,
whichever thread you pull, the entire rope will follow.”15 The Stoic
sage’s pursuit of eudaimonia and virtuous flourishing is carefully con-
nected with grasping Stoic physics, the nature of the cosmos, and the
movement of pneuma in the world away from denser matter toward
purer states of existence. This complex interrelation of ideas can be
illustrated in the Stoic teaching of ekpyrosis—­the recurring conflagra-
tion of the world.16 That the world is consumed in fire and remade
anew in infinite succession does not, in Stoic thinking, indicate a mul-
tiverse of sorts, where new worlds continue to emerge in perpetuity.
It is not new worlds, but rather the same world, down to the smallest
detail, that emerges in endless recurrence in a cycle of Stoic deter-
minism.17 The Stoic disciple (proficientes) is to understand the nature
of their fate (as well as that of the whole world) and perform their
allotted role with honor and a proper mindset. The ideas bound up in
ekpyrosis, then, are simultaneously cosmological, natural, and ethical.
Pneuma occupies a unique place in this interrelated system of
thought as it is the common element that brings all of substance
together into a related whole. It gives coherence to the whole inter-
related system and allows Nature to interface with Reason, Wisdom,
and God. “The whole of substance is unified,” Chrysippus explains,
“because it is totally pervaded by a pneuma through which the whole
is held together.”18 As was the case with ekpyrosis, pneuma must be
understood, therefore, not only as a biological concept, but also
ontological, natural, cosmological, ethical, and religious (or divine).

15
Sedley, Greek and Roman Philosophy, 164.
16
On the Stoic doctrine of conflagration ekpyrosis, see A. A. Long, “The
Stoics on World-­Conflagration and Everlasting Recurrence,” Southern Journal
of Philosophy 23, no. 5 (1985): 13–­37; Alexander, On Aristotle’s Prior Analytics,
180.33–­6 (SVF 2.624); Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 52F.
17
E.g., Lactantius, Divine Institutes 7.23 (SVF 2.623); Long and Sedley,
Hellenistic Philosophers, 1.52B (“Chrysippus . . . when speaking of the world’s
renewal [explains] we too after our death will return again to the shape we now
are, after certain periods of time have elapsed”).
18
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 216.14–­16 (trans. Robert B. Todd, in
Todd, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics [Leiden: Brill Academic, 1997],
115); on the Stoic nature of pneuma and its unifying nature in the cosmos, see
also Lee, Paul and the Stoics, 49–­54.
 56 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

The Greek philosophical tradition contains extensive discussion

of pneuma as a rarefied ether that interacted with the elements of
the cosmos or as a life-­giving principle.19 It is, however, not until
the Stoic writings where one “finally [finds] frequent evidence of an
identification of ‘spirit’ and ‘god.’”20 But this requires clarification.
In the Stoic literature, pneuma is not the primary word to address
or characterize deity (or deities). The connection is indirect. Seneca
expresses this idea well: “all that you behold, that which comprises
both god and man, is one.”21 So, since pneuma is that which pervades
all things, pneuma can signify “God,” but few sources spell this out
in such direct terms.22 In more traditional terms, Stoics can appeal to
God with reference to Zeus.23 On another side of the spectrum, the
notion of God for the Stoics answers to a variety of names and can be
conceived in a variety of ways. The following from Diogenes Laertius
is representative of this way of thinking:
The deity, say they, is a living being, immortal, rational . . .
taking providential care of the world and all that therein is,
but he is not of human shape. He is, however, the artificer
of the universe [δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων] and, as it were, the
father of all, both in general and in that particular part of
him which is all-­pervading, and which is called many names
according to its various powers.24

19
Cf. John M. Rist, “On Greek Biology, Greek Cosmology and Some Sources
of Theological Pneuma,” in Man, Soul and Body: Essays in Ancient Thought from
Plato to Dionysius (Aldershot, England: Variorum, 1996), 27–­40; also Abraham
P. Bos, “‘Pneuma’ as Quintessence of Aristotle’s Philosophy,” Hermes 141, no. 4
(2013): 417–­34.
20
Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, “Holy Spirit,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed.
David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 262. There is early attes-
tation to the mantic inspiration which divinely inspires the prophetic activity at
Delphi. So for example, Euripides, Iphigenia 760–­61 (“There, I am told, Cas-
sandra tosses her yellow hair, adorned with the green crown of myrtle when she
is controlled by the god’s prophetic inspiration [ὅταν θεοῦμαντόσυνοι πνεύσωσ᾿
ἀνάγκαι]”).
21
Seneca, Ep. 95.52.
22
See, e.g., Theophrastus, De sens. 42 (“the air within us [is] a small portion
of god”).
23
E.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 1.6; 2.23.7.
24
Diog. Laert., Lives 7.147. Cf. Lee, Paul and the Stoics, 55n44 (citing stud-
ies representing the various personal and impersonal aspects of Stoic discourse on
“God” with reference to the hymn from Cleanthes).
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 57

Accordingly, Zeno can speak of God as “one and the same with
Reason, Fate, and Zeus,”25 or he can also consider the whole world as a
living being named in terms of God,26 and yet God can also be known
by the more traditional names of Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, and Deme-
ter.27 Because of this flexibility, the Stoics are at home offering sacrifices
and worship to the various gods “under the names which custom has
bestowed upon them.”28 Notably in Stoic practice, these sacrifices are
given their significance by the quality of the one making the offering.
Says Cicero, “the purest, holiest, and most pious way of worshipping
the gods is ever to venerate them with purity, sincerity and innocence
both of thought and of speech.”29 Seneca adds that “the honour that
is paid to the gods lies, not in the victims for sacrifice, though they be
fat and glitter with gold, but in the upright and holy desire of the wor-
shippers [deorum est honor sed recta ac pia voluntate venerantium].”30
To describe Stoic cosmology and philosophy, then, in terms of
monotheism or pantheism is both anachronistic and unhelpful.31
Stoic thought and literary reflections defy simple categorization in
religious terms—­occupying features that are “not purely pantheis-
tic, but an amalgam of pantheism and theism.”32 On one level, it is

25
Diog. Laert. 7.1.135.
26
Diog. Laert. 7.1.137 (“The term universe or cosmos is used by [the Sto-
ics] in three senses: [1] of God himself . . .”).
27
Diog. Laert. 7.1.147. See also Keimpe Algra, “Stoic Philosophical Theol-
ogy and Graeco-­Roman Religion,” in God and Cosmos in Stoicism, ed. Ricardo
Salles (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 224–­51.
28
So says Cicero describing Stoic beliefs through the character Balbus—­here
referring to the proper duties of worship to Ceres and Neptune. See Cicero, Nat. d.
2.28.71.
29
Nat. d. 2.28.71.
30
Seneca, Ben. 1.6.3. See the discussion in Philip N. Richardson, Temple of
the Living God: The Influence of Hellenistic Philosophy on Paul’s Figurative Temple
Language Applied to the Corinthians (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2018), 51–­109
(generously laying out a range of textual examples on Stoic and other Greco-­
Roman philosophers on the subject of cultic imagery and its philosophical out-
working for proper living).
31
E.g., N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: For-
tress, 2013), 213 (“Stoicism, after all, was the classic form of pantheism, the
doctrine that sees divinity in everything”).
32
Johan Carl Thom, Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation and Com-
mentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 25. For a helpful disaggregation of the
features and misconceptions concerning pantheism and other theistic concepts, see
 58 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

accurate to assess Stoic portrayals of deity as the view that God is

one—­a view that approximates pantheism insofar as it regards every-
thing that exists to constitute an all-­inclusive divine unity.33 But Sto-
ics most notably recognize God not in the most abstract sense, but
more particularly in the reason that is discerned in the world and in
wise beings. Epictetus writes that it is “reason [logos] that reflects
the divine in humans, and where men can be spoken of in terms
of their divine character” (Diatr. 1.14.14). So while Epictetus can
expand his notion of God to the general: “all things are united as
one” (Diatr. 1.14), Rowe adds that “in Epictetan grammar God is
not simply another word for the world in its entirety. It names instead
a certain character of the cosmos, a direction or grain within its over-
arching unity.”34 It is perhaps more true to the sources to characterize
Stoicism as a way of life whose practice [ἄσκησις] was informed by
its protracted reflection on the structure of the universe and human
physiology—­a way of thinking that could in some discourse be dis-
cussed in terms compatible with “God” but in other discussions quite
resistant to such categories.

3.2.2. Pneuma, Respiration, and Divinity in Pre-­Stoic Philosophy

Because the Stoics were in conscious dialogue with the classical philo-
sophical tradition, it is important to trace some of these foundational
categories concerning the pneuma. The earliest evidence in the West-
ern world of pneuma as a primary explanation for the formation and
order of the cosmos is attributed to Pythagoras (ca. 570–­490 BCE)
and his followers.35 Like many of the pre-Socratic philosophers of

Michael P. Levine, “Divine Unity and Superfluous Synonymity,” Journal of Specu-

lative Philosophy 4, no. 3 (1990): 211–­36; for its applicability in Greek religion, see
also C. Kavin Rowe, “One and Many in Greek Religion,” in Oneness and Variety,
ed. Adolf Portman and Rudolf Ritsema (Leiden: Brill, 1980).
33
Alasdair MacIntyre, “Pantheism,” in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul
Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), 5:34.
34
C. Kavin Rowe, One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival
Traditions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 48.
35
On Pythagoras and pneuma, see now Phillip Sidney Horky, “Cosmic Spiri-
tualism among the Pythagoreans, Stoics, Jews and Early Christians,” in Cosmos in
the Ancient World, ed. Phillip Sidney Horky (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2019), 270–­94.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 59

his time, and based on our doxographical evidence,36 Pythagoras also

sought to explain the original, elemental principle out of which all
things in the universe derived their origins.37 His predecessors sought
to explain the origination of all things in terms of one of the primary
elements. Some appealed to the basic elements to explain the ori-
gin of all things: water (Thales), fire (Heraclites), air (Anaximenes).
Others shaped their reductionism on more abstract principles such
as “the One” (Parmenides), “change” (Heraclitus), or the elusive
apeiron of Anaximander (c. 610–­546 BCE).38 Aristotle ascribes to
Pythagoras the pronouncement “Numbers constitute the whole uni-
verse” (Metaph. 1.5 986a17–­21). Given his fame for mathematical
theory, this may not surprise many, but it is misleading if not fully
developed with respect to pneuma. The “heaven is One,” Aristotle
reports of Pythagoras, and the space which causes the differentiation
of all things (i.e., the void [τὸ κενόν]) enters heaven “from the infinite
breath” (ἐκ τοῦ ἀπείρου πνεύματος) that is drawn from a fiery cen-
ter.39 The “void penetrates the kosmos as if the latter inhaled it or

36
As is the case with many ancient philosophers who left no extant writings,
our evidence on Pythagoras is doxographical, conflicting, and subject to bias.
On the unique challenges of sorting through the evidence concerning Pythag-
oras, Pythagoreans, and the subdivisions within Pythagoreanism, see Leonid
Zhmud, Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans, trans. Kevin Windle and Rosh
Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 61–­119; see also Erich Frank,
Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer: Ein Kapitel aus der Geschichte des Griech-
ischen Geistes (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1962) (expressing skepticism regarding a gen-
uinely pre-Socratic Pythagoreanism during the century following the death of
Pythagoras).
37
A helpful review of the current scholarship on pre-Socratic philosophy and
Pythagoreanism is Patricia Curd, “New Work on the Presocratics,” J. Hist. Phil.
49, no. 1 (2011): 1–­37. I attribute the following views associated with Pythag-
oras to the thinker himself, leaving aside the debate of what can accurately be
derived from the thinker himself as opposed to his followers and doxographers.
38
While many resort to defining apeiron as “the boundless,” its function and
shape are debated. On this, see Elizabeth Asmis, “What Is Anaximander’s Apeiron?”
J. Hist. Phil. 19, no. 3 (1981): 279–­97 (contending that apeiron does not refer to
a principle physically separated from generated things, but something representing
a principle of deity, who is one with the succession of generated things).
39
Aristotle, Phys. 4.6, 213b22; the texts and translations are also provided
in Horky, “Cosmic Spiritualism,” 272–­73; Charles H. Kahn, Pythagoras and the
Pythagoreans (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), 29.
 60 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

exhaled it like a breath [pneuma] of what is diffused around it from

the outside.”40 For the Pythagoreans, then, the cosmos inhales and
exhales “breath” as a living being, the rhythm of its breathing becom-
ing that which orders the universe, giving shape and differentiation to
all that takes form as a result of its undulating respiration.
What Pythagoras gives rise to in subsequent philosophical reflec-
tion (and taken up far more seriously by the Stoics) is the insight
of the kosmos as a macrocosm of the microcosm of living beings,
animated by pneuma. Horky summarizes this helpfully: “With
the advent of Pythagorean philosophy in Greece something had
changed: the kosmos itself, understood in speculatively biomor-
phic terms, was now being associated with a unified, living being,
whose self-­constitution was regulated through its primal activity
of breathing.”41 Whereas before Pythagoras one might find, as in
Homer, that the gods “breathe into” humans certain insights and
guidance,42 Pythagoras appears to introduce the idea that everything
that is exists as a unified macrocosm, co-­respiring with the living and
breathing inhabitants of the world.
The Stoics develop this Pythagorean image of a single “world
soul” in which any individual being or thing consists as a part of the
whole, each one subsisting as a microcosmos to the ultimate macro-
cosmos which could be identified with God.43 So Cicero explains of
Chrysippus’ theo-­cosmology: “[H]e calls the world itself a god, and
also the all-­pervading world-­soul.”44 As Alexandrian medical thought

40
Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, 651.39–­41; Horky, “Cosmic
Spiritualism,” 273.
41
Horky, “Cosmic Spiritualism,” 274.
42
E.g., Homer, Od. 19.138. Horky notes the similarity of the biblical motif
of God’s inbreathing into man to form a living being (Gen 2:7). “Cosmic Spiri-
tualism,” 274.
43
See George Perrigo Conger, Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the
History of Philosophy (New York: Columbia University Press, 1922). The first
indisputable occurrence of the phrase μικρὸς κόσμος and μακρὸς κόσμος comes
from Aristotle (Phys. 8.2, 252b), but there are conceptual forerunners of the
idea in Democritus and Pythagoras among others (as Conger explains). See also
Diog. Laert. 7.1.143 (“The world . . . is a living thing in the sense of an animate
substance endowed with sensation. . . . It is endowed with soul, as is clear from
our several souls being each a fragment of it”).
44
Cicero, Nat. d. 1.39.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 61

developed, and as pneuma occupied greater explanatory power for

the cohesive aspect of human anatomy and physiology, pneuma like-
wise took on an explanatory role as a dynamic unifying factor in all
life and the cosmos.45

3.2.3. Stoic Concepts of Tension, Sympathy, Blending

To this point, this study has not developed the finer logic behind the
unifying effects of pneuma in Stoic cosmology. It has been established
that the Stoics regarded pneuma as the cohesive principle of the uni-
verse.46 The four elements that have been traditionally accepted in
Greek philosophy—­earth, air, fire, water—­have been reconfigured in
Stoic thinking by an all-­pervading pneuma which holds fire and air
together (constituting the active element of the cosmos) and earth
and water together (the passive element).47 In this scheme, pneuma
binds all things together, not in an abstract sense, but within a system
of finely tuned and interconnected cosmological dynamics. These are
tension, sympathy, and blending, and each will be discussed in turn.
Tension (τόνος) was a concept apparently introduced by Cleanthes
(SVF 1.563) but developed at length by Chrysippus, who understood
that the cosmos was held together by a balance of simultaneously
opposing forces.48 From Heraclitus, the Stoics retrieved the notion
of the pneuma as fire, whose “innate warmth” was among the starting
points for their understanding of the characteristics and function of
pneuma.49 In dialogue with Aristotelian classifications of activity (hot
and cold) and matter (dry and moist), Stoics reasoned the pneuma
as holding in countervailing balance the opposing forces of hot (fire)
and cold (air).50 The cold principle of air opposes the warmth of fire,
and this creates the principle of tension (τόνος) that is necessary for

45
Levison, Filled, 139–­40.
46
§ 3.2.3.
47
On the Stoic reconfiguration of the elements along active and passive prin-
ciples, see Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 280–­89.
48
For a helpful discussion of tension in Stoic cosmology, see Thomas G.
Rosenmeyer, “Body, Tension, and Sumpatheia,” in Senecan Drama and Stoic
Cosmology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 93–­112.
49
E.g., Diog. Laert. 7.156 (SVF 2.774); Heraclitus B31 D–­K ; also from
Zeno, we are told that “heat and pneuma are the same” (SVF 1.513).
50
Diog. Laert. 7.137 (SVF 2.580); also Galen, Plac. 5.3.8 (SVF 2.841).
 62 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

the unifying quality of pneuma.51 Chrysippus deduced that this mix-

ture of heat and cold created a dynamic continuum within pneuma
necessary to keep all manner of things in balance with each other.52
This pneumatic breath, which itself exists in a state of tension, is thus
recognized by the Stoics as the activating and shaping principle for
all things—­providing its stability, its shape, and its characteristics.
Plutarch (reporting Chrysippus) explains that “the sustaining air is
responsible for the quality of each of the bodies which are sustained
by tenor.”53
Closely related to tension (τόνος) is the concept of sympathy
(συμπάθεια), which refers to the interconnected relationship of all
things in nature, particularly the affinity of differing parts joined
together in a larger whole.54 On the simplest level, “if a person is cut
in his finger, the whole body suffers.”55 While the concept is attested
throughout Greek philosophical thinking when applied to organized
groups of individuals,56 it was the Stoics who projected this concept

51
Plutarch reports that the Stoics “say that earth and water sustain neither
themselves nor other things, but preserve their unity by participation in a breathy
and fiery power; but air and fire because of their tensility can sustain themselves,
and by blending with the other two provide them with tension and also with
stability and substantiality.” SVF 2.439; Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers,
282G.
52
SVF 2.406 (Galen, On Natural Faculties 105, 13–­17, reporting Chrysip-
pus); cf. Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 280–­89.
53
Plutarch, SVF 2.449 (in Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 284M);
also Seneca, NQ 2.6.2–­4 (explaining that tension is the agency whereby the spir-
itus [Seneca’s term for pneuma] holds all things together).
54
On symphatheia, see Karl Reinhardt, Kosmos und Sympathie: Neue Unter-
suchungen über Poseidonios (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1926); Eyjólfur K. Emilsson,
Plotinus on Sympatheia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); Katerina Iero-
diakonou, “The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byzantine Appropriation
in Michael Psellos,” in The Occult Sciences in Byzantium, ed. Paul Magdalino and
Maria Mavroudi (Geneva: La Pomme d’Or, 2006); Rosenmeyer, “Body, Ten-
sion, and Sumpatheia”; also Lee, Paul and the Stoics, 52.
55
SVF 2.1013 (εἴ γε δακτύλου τεμνομένου τὸ ὅλον συνδιατίθεται σῶμα).
56
The Hippocratic corpus (De alim. 23.1) refers to how when one part of
the human body suffers, another part of the body may suffer as well. Aristotle
(Pol. 1340a13) invokes συμπάθεια for the principle that humans participate in a
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 63

to the macrocosmic level of conceptuality.57 Since it is a core feature

of Stoic thinking that the whole cosmos is itself a living being (e.g.,
Diog. Laert. 7.142), they reasoned that what is true of individual
persons (interlinked as they are in natural sympathy) must be true
of the cosmos as a whole. Diogenes Laertius (reporting Chrysippus,
7.87–­88) explains that “our individual natures are parts of the whole
universe” (μέρη γάρ εἰσιν αἱ ἡμέτεραι φύσεις τῆς τοῦ ὅλου) and that
our telos is found in following after the nature of life (διόπερ τέλος
γίνεται τὸ ἀκολούθως τῇ φύσει ζῆν).58 Marcus Aurelius writes of a
“mutual interdependence of all things in the Universe” that is “inter-
twined” and held by a “sympathy” that breathes through all things in
“the unity of all substance.”59
The concept of blending (κράσις) (or blending of the whole
[κράσις δι᾽ ὅλων]) gives further cohesion to the nature and func-
tion of pneuma and its overall conception of unity.60 Particularly with
regard to Pauline studies on pneuma, the Greek concept of krasis has

shared feeling (in the context of music); see also Cicero, Nat. d. 2.19 (also in
the context of music, explaining that the sympathetic agreement of all things is
not possible “were they not maintained in unison by a single, divine all-­pervading
spirit [uno divino et continuato spiritu]”); cf. Lee, Paul and the Stoics, 52. On the
topos of the social body and Paul’s appeal to harmonic concord, see Margaret Mary
Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the
Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
1993), 60–­64, and the discussion in Matthew Croasmun, The Emergence of Sin: The
Cosmic Tyrant in Romans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 113–­16.
57
The Stoics also used συμφυΐα, συμμονή, συνοχή, συνέχεια, σύμπωοια, and
συντονία to express similar ideas. References to these have been recorded in Iero-
diakonou, “Greek Concept of Sympatheia,” 100.
58
See also Cleomedes, De motu circulari 1.1 (SVF 2.546) (describing that
“the whole material world” exists in a “mutual sympathy of its parts” in such a
way that the “cosmos [is] held together by one tension and . . . the pneuma [is]
cohesive throughout the whole being”) (translation adopted from Samuel Sam-
bursky, Physics of the Stoics [1959; repr., Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2014], 128–­29).
59
Meditations 6.38.
60
On the principles and passages reflecting on the concept of krasis, see
Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 290–­94; and also now Vanessa de Har-
ven, “The Resistance to Stoic Blending,” Rhizomata 6, no. 1 (2018): 1–­23.
 64 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

received significant attention due to its potential to elucidate Pauline

concepts associated with pneuma and human-­divine union and par-
ticipation.61 What the Stoics sought to accomplish with their unique
understanding of krasis appears to be a development of the theories
offered by Aristotle concerning the nature of mixtures and combina-
tions of different substances.62 Aristotle and the Stoics both under-
stood the differences between “juxtaposition” (παράθεσις) (which
merely involved the combining of two substances with no change
of their separate characteristics) and the kind of blending where two
constituent substances lose their own individual properties to form a
new compound. For Aristotle, this type of ‘blending’ took the form
of “fusion” (σύγχυσις).63 In Aristotle’s view, blending can only take
place when the two constituents are of equal power. A drop of wine in
a large receptacle of water eventually loses its property, perishes, and
becomes a part of the total volume of water.64 The Stoics, however,
disagreed, asserting instead a blending that is “through and through”
(κράσις δι᾽ ὅλων or συγχύσει δι᾽ ὅλων). So Chrysippus says (accord-
ing to Plutarch), “nothing stops a single drop of wine from temper-
ing the sea [and] in the blending the drop will extend through the
whole world.”65
It appears that the Stoic motivation in constructing an explanation
for the mixture of unequal constituents (e.g., wine and water) was to
create space for pneuma to function in its ordered cosmology. While
the “Stoic conception of ‘blending’ has general application,” explains
Long and Sedley, “its chief function was certainly to explain how the

61
See, e.g., Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 112–­13; also Stanley K. Stowers,
“What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?” in Redefining First-­Century Jewish
and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Parish Sanders, ed. Fabian E.
Udoh, Susannah Heschel, Mark Chancey, and Gregory Tatum (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 362–­ 63, and Caroline E. Johnson
Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of
Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 75.
62
So Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 292 (asserting that Stoic
“blending” theories were in “deliberate reference and partial opposition to Aris-
totle”).
63
Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 1.10; 328a.26–­28.
64
Aristotle, On Generation and Corruption 328a.26–­28; see also Long and
Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 292–­93.
65
Plutarch, Comm. not. 1078E (SVF 2.480; LS 48B).
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 65

light and tenuous elements of ‘breath’ [pneuma] could completely per-

vade portions of earth and water whose volume or density was very
much greater.”66 In other words, if Aristotle is correct that only constit-
uents of equal quality and quantity are capable of mixture and fusion,
then pneuma could not shape and order the cosmos and bind all things
together, as it would lose its integrity when blending with other objects
much denser, much larger, or much more vast in concentration and
quality. The Stoic idea of krasis di’ olou, then, preserves a cosmology
and ontological framework in which pneuma and all matter are thor-
oughly blended in such a way that the two are “mutually coextended in
their entirety” but arranged in such a way that “each of them preserves
its own nature.”67 Like heat into an iron, or wine into water, mixtures
can interpenetrate one another, but the Stoics insist that the constitu-
ents persist (retaining their qualities). Importantly, in Stoic thought the
process is reversible and the components of a given mixture can revert
to their constituent parts if necessary.68
What should not be lost in this detail is the understanding that the
Stoic concept of krasis was carefully conceived in order to promote
a causal theory of bodies acting upon other bodies—­a subset of dis-
cussions in the long-­standing mind-­body dilemma in philosophical
debates. In other words, the Stoics sought to solve some of the more
vexing problems associated with the substance of mixtures problem
so that they could create space for pneuma to pervade all things and
establish the logical basis for macro-­and microcosmic correspon-
dence in the universe. The idea, it appears, was not well received in
its time. Plutarch mocks the Stoic doctrine of blending as absurd.69

66
Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 293.
67
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Mixt. 217.6–­7, 216.28–­31; cf. Lee, Paul and
the Stoics, 53.
68
See especially Stobaeus, Eclogae 1.155.5–­ 11 (SVF 2.471; LS 48D)
(“[Reporting Stoic doctrine] That the qualities of blended constituents persist in
such blendings is quite evident from the fact that they are frequently separated
from one another artificially. If one dips an oiled sponge into the wine which has
been blended with water, it will separate the water from the wine since the water
runs up into the sponge”).
69
Plutarch, Comm. not. 1078B–­D (SVF 2.465; LS 48E); also Themistius, On
Aristotle’s Physics 104.9–­19 (SVF 2.468) (“The ancients reduced [the ‘blending’
doctrines of Chrysippus and Zeno’s followers] to a self-­evident impossibility”).
 66 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

According to critics, the objections made prominent in Aristotle (that

two bodies cannot occupy the same space) remain problematic for
the pneumatological “blending” accounts of the Stoics.70
Taken together, the Stoics invested pneuma with holistic explan-
atory power for the structure of the cosmos and the moral basis of
their philosophy. What has been highlighted here is the logic and
function of how pneuma was understood to constitute a unifying
principle for the world and for humans. Tension, sympathy, and blend-
ing were variously identified as interconnected explanations for how
and why the pneuma aptly held all things together while still main-
taining a divine account of causation and reasoned intelligence. They
are not so much isolable features of pneuma as they are overlapping
modes of conceiving nature. Tension explains the attractive power of
the pneuma and sympathy its harmonic and unifying principle. The
concept of blending served more of a ground-­clearing purpose for
the pneuma to be present at every dimension of the cosmos.
The notion of krasis in particular has provided fruitful ground
for Pauline scholars to explain the manner in which Paul understood
pneuma as physically changing the nature of persons so that a per-
son can exist in one state (i.e., gentile, cut off from Abrahamic lin-
eage and with it inheritance to God’s blessing) and be transformed
by the Spirit into another state altogether (i.e., sons of Abraham,
heirs of God and co-­heirs with Christ).71 Thiessen, in particular, is
impressed with how krasis describes a way substances can be mixed
while preserving their unique properties. He applies the concept to
Paul this way: “Since krasis permits the perfect mixture of two sub-
stances, while allowing those substances to retain their own distinc-
tive aspects, Paul’s gentiles-­in-­Christ both remain gentiles, and yet are
distinguished from gentiles who are not in Christ.”72 Having shown
how Stoics developed their theories on krasis in conscious dialogue
with the long-­standing philosophical debates concerning the mind-­
body dilemma, theories claiming Paul’s reliance on krasis for his unity

70
See Todd, Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics, 29–­88 (elaborating
the Stoic idea of “blending,” its quarrels with the Aristotelian paradoxes, and its
intellectual afterlife).
71
See § 6.3.1.
72
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 114. He further compares this concept with the
theological hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures (p. 122).
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 67

discourse ignore much of the philosophical context that undergirded

Stoic krasis discourse. Paul evinces none of these broader philosophi-
cal concerns that the Stoics were preoccupied with, nor does his unity
discourse share conceptual or lexical similarities with Stoic cosmology
despite his reliance on the term pneuma.

3.2.4. Stoic Theology and Wise Living

The interconnected understanding of God and the world provides
insight into how Stoics understood their duty to proper and wise
living. Zeno is reported to connect the divine spirit indwelling within
humans with their capacity for reason and intellect.73 Seneca similarly
speaks of the “god within us” strikingly in terms of “holy spirit” in
Ep. 41 and is worth quoting at length:
We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to
beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as
if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God
is near you, he is with you, he is within you. This is what
I mean, Lucilius: a holy spirit indwells within us, one who
marks our good and bad deeds, and is our guardian [custos].
As we treat this spirit, so we are treated by it. Indeed no man
can be good without the help of God. . . . In each good man
a god doth dwell, but what god know we not.

From this, we have at least one unique occurrence in Stoic literature74

where spirit is discussed within the individual in terms of mutuality:
“as we treat this spirit, so we are treated by it.” The Stoic view of the
divine Spirit can therefore be placed on both the broadest level of
abstraction and on the level of the individual as the parts relate to
the whole. Binding this together is the pneuma, of which even the air
that is breathed, and “the air within us [is] a small portion of god.”75

73
Diog. Laert. 7.1.88; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.14.11–­14; 2.8.11–­14. On this see
also Teun Tieleman, “The Spirit of Stoicism,” in The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and
the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Jörg Frey and John
R. Levison (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 51–­52.
74
This is the only known reference to “holy spirit” at this time apart from the
occurrences in biblical and Palestinian Jewish literature.
75
Theophrastus, De sens. 42; cf. Tieleman, “Spirit of Stoicism,” 53–­ 54
(describing the Stoic importance of respiration to the continuum of the world at
large, governmental bodies, and individual persons).
 68 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

The divine Spirit resides “in each good man,” but in line with Stoic
teaching it must be developed and cultivated for each one to truly
progress in wisdom.
It would be a mistake, however, to color Seneca’s “holy spirit” in
tones resembling early Christian images of an indwelling “holy spirit”
or even that of Qumran for that matter. What is more in view here
is the practice of interfacing with an ideal sage that guides reasoned
living. Accordingly, just as Seneca can speak of a “holy spirit” as a
custos (guardian) that guides men, he encourages Lucilius elsewhere
to choose a hero of the past and use him as a projection to serve as
his guardian and guide (Custodem nobis et paedagogu) (Ep. 12.9). He
describes the guardian as follows:
Cherish some man of high character, and keep him ever
before your eyes, living as if he were watching you, and
ordering all your actions as if he beheld them. Such, my dear
Lucilius, is the counsel of Epicurus; he has quite properly
given us a guardian and an attendant. We can get rid of most
sins, if we have a witness who stands near us when we are
likely to go wrong. (Ep. 12.8–­9)

There can be no doubt in this selection that he is speaking in terms

of human guides from the past. “Choose therefore a Cato,” Seneca
suggests, “or if Cato seems too severe a model, choose some Laelius,
a gentler spirit.” Understood this way, there is an interchangeability in
Seneca’s logic about the divine principles for right living and its more
human-­spiritual manifestations. In the prior epistle (Ep. 10.5), Seneca
gives this advice: “Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with
God as if men were listening.” The image of “living as if God beheld
you” matches the idea of a spirit of “Cato or Laelius” that watches
over the wise man, and therefore ought to order their actions “as if he
beheld them.” In this light, what Seneca most likely means by a “holy
spirit” within the person is the Stoic’s projection of an “ideal sage” that
models wisdom and serves as a guide for the right path of living.76

3.2.5. The Fellowship of Man in Stoic Thinking

Stoicism is most popularly understood today as a philosophical teach-
ing promoting a dispassionate endurance of all circumstances. So says

76
On the importance of the ideal sage in Stoicism, see Thorsteinsson, Roman
Christianity and Roman Stoicism, 150–58.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 69

Seneca: “Whatever happens, good men should take it in good part,

and turn it to a good end; it is not what you endure that matters, but
how you endure it [non quid sed quemadmodum feras interest].”77
While this is an undeniable feature of Stoic practice, more than pro-
moting steely individualism, Stoicism featured a robust understanding
of mutual obligation for one’s fellow man. This idea largely derives
from what Stoics perceive to be the pattern of nature. Seneca wrote,
“Nature produced us related to one another . . . and made us prone
to friendships.” His exhortation from this unity follows as such: “Let
us possess things in common; for birth is ours in common. Our rela-
tions with one another is like a stone arch, which would collapse if the
stones did not mutually support each other, and which is upheld in
this very way.”78 Seneca expresses a common theme of Stoic thought
that emerges as a direct outworking of seeing the world as one whole,
held together in a fluid balance of tension and sympatheia. All men
are joined in common and so therefore are related to one another. As
we have established, orchestrating the fine-­tuning of this balance is
a divine spirit. So Cicero: “[The] musical harmony of all the parts of
the world assuredly could not go on were they not maintained in uni-
son by a single, divine, all-­pervading spirit [uno divino et continuato
spiritu]” (Nat. d. 2.19).
It is this sense of shared commonality that motivates Stoic love for
the brotherhood of mankind. So Seneca, on the treatment of slaves
(Ep. 47.11–­12): “Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave
sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on
equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies. . . . This is my ker-
nel of my advice: Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your
betters.” Importantly, the Stoics could use the term of fellowship
(κοινωνία) to convey this very idea. So Epictetus can describe univer-
sal humanity as “the natural fellowship of men with one another” (ἡ
φθσικὴ κοινωνία ἀνθρώποις πρὸς ἀλλήλους).79 Seneca adds, “with
the gods lies dominion, and among men, fellowship.”80

77
Seneca, Dial. 1.2.4.
78
Seneca, Ep. 95.53.
79
Epictetus, Diatr. 2.20.6.
80
Seneca, Ep. 41.2. Also Epictetus, Diatr. 3.24.64–­66 (explaining that the
wise example of Diogenes the Cynic endured hardships for the sake of others,
regarding the whole world as his “fatherland”).
 70 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

3.3. Other Greco-­Roman Features of Pneuma

3.3.1. The Genealogical and Reproductive Spirit (Pneuma and Seed)

One distinct area where the “materiality” of pneuma gains traction in
the secondary literature regarding Paul is the subject of the transmis-
sion of pneuma as seed (in the sense of seminal reproduction).81 Aris-
totle’s epigenetic view of human reproduction, for example, depended
on an “innate pneuma” (σύμφυτον) distinct from the external air
(ἐπείσακτον), which interacted with the hot air of sperm (σπέρμα
and alternatively γονή) and the heat of menstrual blood to form the
basis of reproduction and the propagation of life.82 Aristotle’s view
of conception departed from the competing Hippocratic concept of
pangenesis—­the belief that the seed carries the full material necessary
to form one’s descendants.83 Drawing from this background, Mat-
thew Thiessen’s account of gentile reception of the pneuma surmises
that Paul “depends upon a stream of biological understanding that
believed that a man’s descendants preexist inside him.”84 Under this
theory, gentiles “are pneumatically placed in Christ, who is Abra-
ham’s seed and who at one time existed in Abraham,” and therefore
“become Abrahamic seed and find themselves to be in Abraham.”85

81
Pneuma importantly also arises in connection with the Roman practice of
adoption (υἱοθεσία) in ways that are decidedly nonmaterial; see Robert Brian
Lewis, Paul’s “Spirit of Adoption” in Its Roman Imperial Context (London: T&T
Clark, 2016).
82
Gen. an. 2, 763b30–­737a; on the role of pneuma in reproduction gener-
ally, see Shino Kihara, “The Physiology of Pneuma and the Relationship between
Aristotle and Greek Medicine,” Journal of Philosophy and Ethics in Health Care
and Medicine 11 (2017): 33–­40; also Anthony Preus, “Galen’s Criticism of Aris-
totle’s Conception Theory,” Journal of the History of Biology 10, no. 1 (1977):
65–­85.
83
E.g., Hippocrates, Morb. sacr. 5; For discussion on ancient theories of con-
ception, including pangenesis, epigenesis, and preformation, see Preus, “Galen’s
Criticism of Aristotle’s Conception Theory”; Kihara, “Physiology of Pneuma”;
Abraham P. Bos, “Aristotle on Soul and Soul-­‘Parts’ in Semen (Gen. an. 2.1,
735a4–­22),” Mnemosyne 62, no. 3 (2009): 378–­400.
84
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 127. Thiessen also cites Seneca for support of
idea that a contemporary of Paul thinks in pangenetic ways. Cf. Nat. Quaest.
3.29.3 (“In the semen there is contained the entire record of the man to be.”).
85
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 162–­63.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 71

The medical writings of Galen and others further develop this view
of seminal transmission of the pneuma.86 Furthermore, these medical
thinkers postulated that the pneuma is formed in the lungs and hearts
where the external air is refined, forming vital pneuma (πνεῦμα τοῦ
ζωτικοῦ), which in turn proceeds from the heart to the rest of the
body through the arteries.87 On a more general level, related to this is
the idea that God is the progenitor of humanity, with pneuma serving
as a part of the physical means by which men have come into being as
his offspring. Dio Chrysostom, portraying the creation of the world,
describes the process as follows:
[Zeus] having made fluid [γονῇ] all his essence, one seed for
the entire world [ἓν σπέρμα τοῦ παντός], he himself moving
about in it like a spirit that moulds and fashions in genera-
tion [καθάπερ ἐν γονῇ πνεῦμα τὸ πλάττον καὶ δημιουργοῦν],
then indeed most closely resembling the composition of the
other creatures, inasmuch as he might with reason be said to
consist of body and soul, he with ease moulds and fashions
all the rest.88

Recently, several other proposals within Pauline studies have

attributed some of this material regarding pneuma and sexual repro-
duction to inform Paul’s own language concerning “the seed of
Abraham” and Paul’s language of genealogy (principally in Gala-
tians 3). Jeremy Barrier explores the manner in which ancient Greek
philosophical and medical ideas concerning the pneuma shaped
Paul’s own understanding of how pneuma forms “sons of Abraham”
by means of the “sperma.”89 Barrier proposes that the “nations are
‘blessed’ through the passing down of a pneuma-­enriched sperm” so

86
See Galen, De Semine 1.16; also Preus, “Galen’s Criticism of Aristotle’s
Conception Theory,” 80–­85.
87
Galen, De Semine 1.16.30.
88
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 36.57; also Dio Chrysostom, Discourses
31–­36; also Epictetus, Diatr. 1.3 (“We are all primarily begotten of God, and
that God is the father of men as well as of gods” [ὅτι γεγόναμεν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ
πάντες προηγουμένως καὶ ὁ θεὸς πατήρ ἐστι τῶν τ᾿ ἀνθρώπων καὶ τῶν θεῶν]).
89
Jeremy W. Barrier, “Jesus’ Breath: A Physiological Analysis of Πνεῦμα
within Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” JSNT 37, no. 2 (2014): 115–­38.
 72 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

that “Abraham’s pneuma was being passed on from one generation

to the next.”90
This discussion anticipates what must be reserved in a fuller elab-
oration of Paul’s understanding of gentile believers as “sons of Abra-
ham,” who like Isaac, are understood to be born according to the
Spirit (κατὰ πνεῦμα) (Gal 3:29).91 From what little we have reviewed
in Paul to this point, we should only note that in Pauline language,
pneuma itself is never described in terms of “seed” or “sperm” (an
assumption upon which the material pneumatic arguments on gene-
alogy depend). The pneuma for Paul is sent from God, and is received
into the hearts of his people, but this sending and receiving is shaped
by and conditioned principally by “the Spirit of the Son” in Pauline
formulations. The logic of this construction is such that the Spirit
does not explicitly cause or establish the status as “sons of God,” but
more precisely testifies to that new relationship.92

3.3.2. One Spirit, a Holy Spirit, and the Spirits of the “Spirit World”
As we conclude this section on the significance of “oneness” and sin-
gularity in the comparative literature, some recognition is owed to the
literary evidence that reveals not a singularity of pneuma but rather
a complex of an entire “spirit world.” Clint Tibbs argues “the notion
that there was only one unique Holy Spirit is hardly sustainable for
the first century.”93 Instead it is urged that “in the first century there

90
Barrier, “Jesus’ Breath,” 127. Barrier wrongly cites John Anthony Dunne’s
work for the claim that “in Gal. 4.6 pneuma comes from the mouth of the cruci-
fied Jesus (Dunne 2013: 3–­16) as he cries ‘Abba, Father.’” Dunne only suggests
that the ἀββα cry of Gal 4.6 is a cry of suffering that corresponds to Jesus’ own
suffering. See John Anthony Dunne, “Suffering in Vain: A Study of the Interpre-
tation of Πάσχω in Galatians 3.4,” JSNT 36, no. 1 (2013): 10.
91
See the discussion in § 6.3.
92
See § 6.3.3.
93
Clint Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma: Communication with the
Spirit World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 71.
On the significance of the “spirit world” in Pauline thought, see in particular Guy
Williams, The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle: A Critical Examina-
tion of the Role of Spiritual Beings in the Authentic Pauline Epistles (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009); also Clint Tibbs, “The Spirit (World) and the
(Holy) Spirits among the Earliest Christians: 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as a Test
Case,” CBQ 70, no. 2 (2008): 313–­30.
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 73

was no divine Person known as ‘the Holy Spirit’ who was distin-
guished from other holy spirits.”94 By this he refers not simply to the
various spirit beings that populate the ancient world (whether angels,
demons, the stoicheia, and the like), but to Paul’s own idiom of the
pneuma of God (πνεῦμα θεοῦ, πνεῦμα ἅγιον, and the like), which
should be less informed by later trinitarian orthodoxy concerning
the singular personhood of a “Holy Spirit” and more informed by
the textual and philological clues of early Judaism and Greco-­Roman
antiquity. Taken together, at least so the argument goes, these sources
indicate that Paul did not portray a numerically singular pneuma, but
a concert of many spirit beings that work together “as one” for the
cause of Jesus Christ over against the evil spirits that oppose him.95
In Pauline usage, scholars emphasizing this aspect of pneuma pay
particular attention to the grammatical variety of Paul’s references
to what is often simply translated “the Spirit” or “the Holy Spirit”
in English translations. Paul’s own handling of pneuma language
employs an apparently unsystematic array of constructions, whether
articular, anarthrous, singular, and plural. Williams observes that there
is only one reference in Paul’s letters to “the Holy Spirit” (τοῦ ἁγίου
πνεύματος) (2 Cor 13:13) and that he typically favors anarthrous
constructions when speaking of the spirit.96 It is argued that while
Paul could have made the necessary linguistic distinctions between
plural spirits from God and “the Spirit of God,” he appears to have
made no efforts to do so.97
These arguments against an anachronistic theological construct
foisted onto Paul’s pneumatology are well-­taken. However, insofar as
these arguments deny an identifiable and stable identity in Paul’s ref-
erences to “holy spirit,” they are likely to confuse the issues more than
elucidate them. Certainly Paul takes for granted a spirit world filled

94
Tibbs, “Spirit (World),” 320.
95
Williams, Spirit World; Tibbs, Religious Experience of the Pneuma.
96
Williams, Spirit World, 23–­24.
97
So Williams, Spirit World, 24 (“Without any kind of dogmatic motivation
for doing so, Paul made no effort to distinguish between spirits from God and
the Spirit of God”). Cf. Émile Puech, “L’esprit saint à Qumran,” Liber Annuum
49 (1999): 291 (“L’esprit saint n’ est jamais distinct de Dieu d’ou il provient et
dont il est une des manifestations de sa presence dans le cœur de l’homme”).
 74 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

with diverse δαιμονίοις, ἄγγελοι, and στοιχεῖα, but importantly, Paul

uses precisely these terms to describe them.98 Nevertheless, Paul’s view
of Spirit is preeminently shaped by the risen Christ. It is “the spirit
of the Son” (Gal 4:6) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9) that Paul
names. The collocation of “holy spirit” in Pauline use, whether articu-
lar or anarthrous, bear a wide consistency of both reference and mode
of locution.99 Given the fact that “holy spirit” can be referred to with-
out further explanation in his letters serves as evidence that its identity
and role in the community was already well-­known and understood.
This favors a finding of spirit language bearing a stable referentiality of
identity (rather than indicating a diverse set of related spirits).
The identity of pneuma is also assumed in Paul’s language of “one
Spirit.” That there is “one Spirit” in whom all believers are baptized
(1 Cor 12:13), and “one Spirit” whom all believers should “stand in”
(Phil 1:27), assumes a sharing in the same, singular reality rather than
a diverse multiplicity of spirit experiences or spirit beings. Paul can
speak of a discernment of the spirits (1 Cor 12:10) and can make a
distinction between a spirit of the world in distinction with the “spirit
received from God” (1 Cor 2:12; 1 Thess 4:8; 2 Cor 11:4). This
confirms that Paul trusts the community to identify the Holy Spirit,
which is capable of being distinguished from other spirits—­bearing
an identity that can be discerned, tested, and confirmed.100 For Wil-
liams and Tibbs, while they may validly report that Paul can speak
of a variety of good spirits, their advocacy of a broad “spirit world”
to capture Paul’s pneuma discourse does not sufficiently account for
those places Paul unquestionably speaks of the pneuma as a single
entity (1 Cor 2:12), personified with agential will (1 Cor 12:11) and
marked by an active ministry on behalf of God’s people (Rom 8:26).

98
Demons: 1 Cor 10:20–­21; angels: Rom 8:38; 1 Cor 4:9; 6:3; 13:1; 2 Cor
11:14; Gal 1:8; Gal 3:19; stoicheia: Rom 4:12; Gal 4:3; 4:9; 5:25; 6:16; Phil
3:16. On the stoicheia as “evil spirits” rather than a reference to elemental princi-
ples, see Clinton E. Arnold, “Returning to the Domain of the Powers: Stoicheia
as Evil Spirits in Galatians 4:3,9,” NovT 38 (1996): 55–­76.
99
Rom 5:5; 9:1; 14:17; 15:13; 15:16; 1 Cor 6:19; 12:3; 2 Cor 13:13; 1
Thess 1:5; 4:8.
100
On the motif of the discernment of the spirits, see notably André Mun-
zinger, Discerning the Spirits: Theological and Ethical Hermeneutics in Paul
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 75

3.3.3. The Greek Magical Papyri and the Plurality of Paredroi

The discussion of Paul’s identification of “one spirit” also signals a pro-
found departure from the way ancient magical texts describe a plurality
of “spirits” in religious and daily life. To the extent that the evidence
found within the Greek magical papyri gives us some insight into the
common folk belief of the time and area concerning the spirits,101 we
learn of numerous references to the paredroi (πάρεδροι) (helper spirits
or “divine assistants”) who could be summoned by rite or spell to assist
the supplicants in their various needs.102 One text describes the paredros
to be “a god [ὁ θεός]; [who] is an aerial spirit [πνεῦμα ἐστιν ἀέριον]”
(PGM 1.96).103 When the sacred rite is summoned, the familiar spirit
performs helpful tasks of all kinds. Notably, this divine assistant spirit

101
On the relevance of this collection of sources of Egyptian provenance
for Pauline communities and New Testament study, see Ronald S. Stroud, The
Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Inscriptions (Princeton: American School of
Classical Studies at Athens, 2013), 83, 153–­57. The critical Greek text and notes
are available at Karl Preisendanz, ed., Papyri Graecae Magicae: Die Griechischen
Zauberpapyri, 2 vols. (1928–­31; repr., Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001); for translation
and notes, see Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation:
Including the Demotic Spells: Texts, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996). On the evidence of magical practice in Roman Corinth, see Stroud,
Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore, 83, 153–­57.
102
For a fuller discussion of the paredroi, see Leda Jean Ciraolo, “Supernatu-
ral Assistants in the Greek Magical Papyri,” in Ancient Magic and Ritual Power,
ed. Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (Boston: Brill Academic, 1995), 155–­65;
see also Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic,
2010), 233. The term itself literally means to “sit beside or near,” from the verb
παρεδρεύω, “to wait or attend upon.” See LSJ, s.v. πάρεδρος and παρεδρεύω. In
the Greek magical papyri, the term commonly refers to a “supernatural assistant
who serves the practitioner of magic.” Ciraolo, “Supernatural Assistants,” 279.
However, the term can also refer to the god Eros, to other daimones, to the spell
itself, or to the deity who manifests as a different entity. On this, see especially
Eleni Pachoumi, “Divine Epiphanies of Paredroi in the Greek Magical Papyri,”
Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51, no. 1 (2011): 155–­65.
103
Also PGM 1.128–­29, where the paredros is referred to as “the most pow-
erful paredros, also the only Lord of the air” (ὁ κράτιστος πάρεδρος οὗτος,
ὁ καὶ μόνος κύριος τοῦ ἀέρος). Again, the relational hierarchy or equality of
paredros with divine beings is not always clear in these texts, although the most
common occurrences are in the form of helper spirits that are sent from the
gods, but at times so present as to manifest the divine presence; cf. Pachoumi,
“Divine Epiphanies.”
 76 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

can “quickly bring daimones [δαίμονας]” and can also “stop very many
evil daimones” (1.116). Indeed, the opening rite of the collection of
magical papyri explains that this assistant daimon “will be your com-
panion and will eat and sleep with you” (1.1–­2).
There are indeed inviting similarities between the πάρεδροι of the
Greek magical texts and the παράκλητος (cf. John 14:16; 15:26) of
later traditions of the New Testament. Both spirits are sent from ὁ
θεός, both can be described as “coming alongside” the petitioner,
and both are understood to provide significant comfort and assis-
tance to the supplicant. To be observed, however, is the numerosity
and diversity of such spirits in the magical papyri that may be called
upon by the practitioner of magic for the assistance of various needs
and tasks. As we have argued, it is important for Paul that there is
“one Spirit” that can be distinguished from “another Spirit” (2 Cor
11:4). This identifiable pneuma can be distributed and apportioned
among many persons, to be sure, but for Paul, just as many fires can
be shared from a single flame without diminution to the original:
there is “one and the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:11) who gives gifts and
empowerment to different members of the body.104

3.4. Conclusions
This chapter has sought to develop some important ways in which
pneuma is understood and discussed in prominent Greco-­Roman
texts leading up to the time of Paul. In keeping with the larger study,
this chapter has focused on the unitive aspects of the pneuma as well
as the relationship between pneuma and divinity insofar as they are
discussed in such terms.
Because of Stoicism’s profound reliance on pneuma as a structur-
ing and animating principle in its system of thought, the bulk of the
attention was devoted to this literature and its antecedents. For the
Stoics, the pneuma is in everything and is everywhere, promoting the
cosmic respiration of the universe while also infusing life into every
human, binding them into a common humanity. In this system of

104
Cf. Philo, Giants 25 (“But think not that this taking of the spirit comes to
pass as when men cut away a piece and sever it. Rather it is, as when they take fire
from fire, for though the fire should kindle a thousand torches, it is still as it was
and is not diminished not a whit.”).
Stoic and Greco-­Roman Background Material for One Spirit 77

thought, pneuma is at once cosmology and anthropology and ethics;

it is the stuff of the universe and the divine spark that leads practi-
tioners of the Stoic way of life up the ascent to eudaimonia, fuller
wisdom, and their modulation into purer pneumatic quality.
Beyond the Stoic literature, we are reminded of an active and
diverse world of spirits discussed in the Greco-­Roman texts. The
spirits could be invoked for prophetic oracles, as helping companion
spirits, or even as healing spirits. The ancient medical texts indicate
that pneuma could be breathed in as a vapor, or absorbed through
the skin, or ingested through other forms of food and drink. Aristotle
and his interlocutors paved pathways for pneuma to be readily dis-
cussed in terms of reproductive seed and the vital principles of life in
procreation. These notions in turn helped shape ideas regarding the
pneumatic constituency of human beings and were also instrumental
to Stoic accounts of how baser densities ascend to more pneumatic
and purer states of being.
 4
Christ, the Spirit, and
God’s Temple

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified

in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in
every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their
Lord and ours.
1 Corinthians 1:2

The constructive thesis for this study follows the shape and logic of
unity around the associated Pauline ideas of the pneuma, union with
Christ, and God’s temple as they arise in the Corinthian letters. In
summary form, Paul relies on the Spirit to establish a mode of unit-
ing Christ’s presence with his people. This union is given definition
and form by appeal to various imagery associated with the temple
and the maintenance of sacred space. In sum, the primary shape of
Paul’s unity discourse is spiritual, and the nature of that spirituality
is cultic and mediatorial around the figure of Christ. For this rea-
son, Paul’s identification of “one Spirit” as the basis for the joining
of the many members into “one body” whether “Jews or Greeks,
slaves or free” should be read within the larger spatial dimensions
of Paul’s imagery concerning “the body of Christ,” “the temple of
God,” and the members of this body who are instructed to mutually
“build up” this body in love. In this unity, “neither circumcision
nor uncircumcision is anything” (1 Cor 7:19), but by the Spirit they
are “one in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28). These relational
images expressed in terms of spatiality should give pause to Pauline
readings of unity that emphasize the spiritual formation of a “third
race” that is neither Jew nor gentile. Instead of forging a new unity

79
 80 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

that merely draws from categories of ethnicity and genealogy, Paul

relies on Spirit to re-­create a new conception of sacred space that
is capable of holding together the differences of Jews and gentiles
in worship of the same God—­variegated cultic expressions within a
common faith. The cultic realization of this Spirit-­union does not
serve to supersede the relevance of the Jerusalem temple or Jewish
traditions, but, as will be argued, establishes a new covenant that
expects both Jew and gentile to “uphold the law,” however provi-
sionally, until Christ’s return.
In pursuing this argument, particular attention will be directed
toward clarifying the relationship between “Spirit” and temple in
Paul’s discourse. For many, Spirit is the sufficient condition for the
establishment of Paul’s idea of temple. Gordon Fee’s comments on
1 Corinthians 3:16 (and 6:19) concerning the spirit and temple
are representative of this principle: “The presence of the Spirit,
and that alone, marks them off as God’s new people, God’s temple,
when assembled in Christ’s name in Corinth.”1 Adding to the con-
fusion, Paul’s temple language is often understood to apply both
to the individual and the community in a mutually open concept.2
Alternatively, instead of that which demarcates God’s temple, other
scholars contend that Paul uses the pneuma to signify a way of met-
aphorically comparing the new messianic community with the Jeru-
salem temple. So says Fredriksen: “Paul praises the new community
by likening it to something that he values supremely—­the sanctity,

1
Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2014), 160; see also, e.g., N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of
God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 712 (“The indwelling of the spirit consti-
tuted the long-­awaited return of YHWH to Zion”); Nicholas Perrin, Jesus the
Temple (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 70 (“Where the spirit settles, there one
finds the temple”).
2
E.g., Fee, First Corinthians, 291 (“In referring to the body as the temple
of the Spirit, Paul has taken the imagery that properly belongs to the church as
a whole and in this single instance applied it to the individual believer”) (cita-
tions omitted); also Hans Conzelmann, First Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress,
1988), 112; Wright, PFG, 712–­13; Nijay K. Gupta, “Which ‘Body’ Is a Temple
(1 Corinthians 6:19)? Paul beyond the Individual/Communal Divide,” CBQ 72,
no. 3 (2010): 531.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 81

dignity, and probity of the temple cult.”3 Both approaches seem to

ignore the larger network of ideas in Paul’s Corinthian correspon-
dence that give shape to his characterization of worshipping com-
munities “in Christ.” In conjunction with the temple that stands in
Jerusalem, Paul regards Christ himself to be the locus of the heav-
enly reality of God’s temple presence with his people. That believers
are deemed to be the temple depends on the premise that they are
joined to Christ by the Spirit.
The next two chapters will seek to sharpen our understanding of
Paul’s pneuma discourse as it pertains to these larger points concern-
ing the temple, and with it, the dynamics of his teaching on unity. The
shape of this argument will be structured in three main movements:
1. Paul regards Christ’s presence with his people in terms of a
heavenly temple.
2. The Spirit provides the means for Christ to be present with
his people and establishes the ethos for the community in
terms of temple and the duties surrounding the “building
up” of the body.
3. The new cultic assembly in Christ did not signal an era-
sure or transcendence of ethnic distinctions, but rather an
accommodation of these differences, particularly in the
distinctive worshipping practices of Jews and gentiles in
joint worship of the same Lord.

4.1. Overview of 1 Corinthians—­Union, Fellowship, and

Relational Structures
As a way of orientation, this chapter begins with establishing the ways
in which Paul sets up 1 Corinthians around the theme of worship,
fellowship, and unity—­paying close attention to how Paul directs their
relational patterns and allegiances (whether by leaders, patrons, or
their union with Christ). These are themes that continue to develop
in 2 Corinthians. The second section then tracks the Corinthian
correspondence along the lines of the first two movements of the

3
Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2017), 154; also Kathleen Troost-­Cramer, “De-­Centralizing the Temple:
A Rereading of Romans 15:16,” JJMJS, no. 3 (2016): 71–­101.
 82 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

thesis: first, that Christ himself is understood as the locus of sacred

space; and second, that the Spirit is the means by which this pattern
of sacred space is realized in the churches. This section concludes
with drawing out the logic of how Paul uses this relational-­spatial
complex to address the underlying concern of disunity and discord
at Corinth, but with special emphasis on the Jewish–­gentile character
of that discord.

4.1.1. The Call of Both Jews and Greeks (1 Cor 1)

The beginning of 1 Corinthians is distinctive for its cultic call to wor-
ship, evocative of key scriptural themes pertaining to sacred space.
This is demonstrated in the opening verse (1 Cor 1:2): “To the church
of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus,
called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call
on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”
Scholars have observed that the collocation of “calling” (ἐπικαλέω),
“name” (ὄνομα), “Lord” (κύριος), and “place” (τόπος) matches tem-
ple worship formulae throughout the LXX, often expressed in the
Deuteronomic refrain “the place that the Lord will choose, to make
his name dwell there.”4 The opening further evokes a rich and poten-
tially meaningful weave of scriptural themes that converge on sacred
space, the eschatological pouring of the Spirit, and the praise of the
gentiles (the nations) in Israel’s midst. The phrase “in every place” (ἐν
παντὶ τόπῳ) in collocation with the “name of the Lord” likely alludes
to Malachi 1:11LXX, an utterance that looks to an eschatological time
when “in every place [ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ] incense is offered to [his] name;
for [his] name is great among the nations.” Importantly, in the New
Testament, the allusion to “the saints in every place” is found only in
the Pauline corpus (also 2 Cor 2:14; 1 Thess 1:8; cf. 1 Tim 2:8) and
is consistently used to express the worship of God that spreads around
the nations in keeping with Paul’s gentile mission.5

4
Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 34–­35; also Nijay K. Gupta, Worship That
Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic
Metaphors (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 62–­64; cf. Deut 12:11, 21, 26; 14:23–­24;
16:2, 6, 11; 2 Chr 6:20; Isa 18:7; Jer 7:14.
5
See Ciampa and Rosner, Corinthians, 34. The litany of texts in Rom
15:9–­12 likewise conveys Paul’s fixation with the worship and praise of the
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 83

Furthermore, while the expression “calling upon the name” is a

widespread scriptural refrain, its connection to this context evoke not
only the first scriptural account of sacred space, when Abraham first
begins to call on the name of the Lord upon a prototypical altar (Gen
13:4), but also appear to invoke prophetical allusions to a time when
God pours out the Spirit on all flesh and “everyone who calls on name
of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 3:1–­5LXX). Zephaniah 3:9–­10 likewise
portrays a time of eschatological judgment when the nations “bring
their offering to the Lord” and their speech is changed “to a pure speech,
that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one
accord.” In this densely packed introductory statement, we find, then,
Paul painting a scriptural portrait of the “nations” offering worship to
the Lord, not in a singular place of worship that was revealed only to
Israel—­the place where his Name dwells—­but now in every place where
the saints call upon the name of the Lord. In this cultic context, the
“Nations” are alluded to as those worshipping the Lord in every place
and (if Zephaniah is in view) serving him in “one accord.”
The density of “call” language in these opening verses should
also not be missed. Paul is “called” (κλητὸς) to be an apostle (1:1).
The church in Corinth is “called to be saints” (κλητοῖς ἁγίοις)
together with all the ones who “call on the name of the Lord” (τοῖς
ἐπικαλουμένοις) (1:2). They are “called [ἐκλήθητε] into the fel-
lowship of his Son” (1:9). It is with this introductory material that
Paul exhorts his hearers to “consider [their] call” (Βλέπετε γὰρ τὴν
κλῆσιν ὑμῶν) (1:26) in the midst of his discourse on wisdom and
God’s election (1:17–­2:16). What is of signal importance is that the
“calling” at issue expressly names a calling of both Jews and gentiles
in furtherance of the opening themes of the worship of the gentiles
(1:23–­24): “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but
we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and fool-
ishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

gentiles “with his people” (Rom 15:10). In this passage he views his own min-
istry “in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the
Gentiles may be acceptable” (15:16). The other occurrence with a similar set of
collocated terms is Exod 20:24, where the instructions for altars are given; the
Lord says to Moses, “in every place where I cause my name to be remembered,
I will come to you and bless you.”
 84 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

This point naturally raises the question of whether Paul wrote to a

Corinthian church (or churches) that included both Jews and gentiles
together or simply exclusively gentiles and Godfearers. The matter is
of considerable debate, both in the Corinthian letters and across the
Pauline corpus.6 While our analysis does not hinge on the presence
of Jewish believers in Corinth, the evidence marshals in favor of such
a finding. Philo lists Corinth among the diaspora regions in which
Jews have settled.7 Josephus reports that some six thousand Jewish
slaves were put to work on the Corinthian isthmus under the order of
Vespasian during the reign of Nero (ca. 54–­68 CE). The well-­known
synagogue inscription [ΣΥΝ]ΑΓWΓΗΗΕΒΡ[AΙW] provides probative
evidence of a significant Jewish community in the region, although
wide disagreement in its dating prevents any finding in favor of a
first-­century provenance.8 Looking to the New Testament evidence,

6
E.g., E. P. Sanders, “Paul’s Attitude toward the Jewish People,” USQR 33,
no. 3–­4 (1978): 178 (“It is an argument from silence, but nevertheless a striking
one, to observe that there is not a single passage to indicate that there was a
single Jewish member in any of the churches founded by Paul”). More recently
scholars are laying great store in the exclusively gentile composition of Pauline
ekklēsiai and its resulting impact on Pauline interpretation. E.g., Rafael Rodri-
guez and Matthew Thiessen, The So-­Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016); also Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocu-
tor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography
(Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003). Against this, see also the arguments
from Peter Richardson, “On the Absence of ‘Anti-­Judaism’ in 1 Corinthians,” in
Anti-­Judaism in Early Christianity: Paul and the Gospels, ed. Peter Richardson
and David Granskou, vol. 1 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press,
1986), 59–­74.
7
Legat. 281–­82. Less specific (but not less hyperbolic) is the report of
Strabo (by way of Josephus) who indicates the ubiquity of Jewish settlements
throughout the inhabited world. Cf. John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterra-
nean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–­117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T
Clark, 1996), 10.
8
The disagreement in dating owes in part to the problematic history of bib-
lical scholarship and archaeology (particularly in sites like Corinth), which is not
immune to vested interests and ideological constraints on various sides. On this
see notably Cavan W. Concannon, “The Archaeology of the Pauline Mission,”
in All Things to All Cultures: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans, ed. Mark
Harding and Alanna Nobbs (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013); cf. Bradley J. Bit-
ner, Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1–­4: Constitution and Covenant
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 91–­101.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 85

Bitner observes that “Philo, Luke, and Paul each supply, in varying
detail, information that alleges and presumes the presence of a Jewish
community in first-­century Corinth.”9 The weight of the evidence is
such that we may conclude with Horrell that “the Corinthian Chris-
tian community certainly contained both Jews and Gentiles, though
mostly the latter (1 Cor 12:2).”10 More important than the compo-
sitional audience, however, is the leading ideas from 1 Corinthians 1
that draws out a temple context in its call to “Jews and Greeks,” and
to all saints in every place who call upon the name of the Lord.

4.1.2. Establishing the Larger Context and Theme: Fellowship

with the Son
Not only does 1 Corinthians begin with cultic overtones, but it quickly
establishes the idea of fellowship with Christ as an overarching theme.

9
Bitner, Political, 91. Bitner also observes a “distinctive covenantal accent”
in the text of 1 Corinthians, couched in the familiar Deuteronomic framework
of oath, stipulation, sanction, embodied practice, ritual instruction, and blessings
and curses that are written “in terms explicable largely, if not solely, to Jews and
those conversant with the Jewish scriptures and their covenantal discourse” (88).
Bitner relies in significant part on the thesis of David Lincicum, who argues
that the Corinthian correspondence interacts extensively with the Deuteronomic
material, not simply in an unreflective manner, but in a series of embodied prac-
tices that revive for a new audience the experience of covenantal obligation and
loyalty—­what he calls “the liturgical-­anamnetic” experience of Deuteronomy. Cf.
David Lincicum, Paul and the Early Jewish Encounter with Deuteronomy (Tübin-
gen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), esp. 119–­66. Cf. R. W. L. Moberly, “Toward an
Interpretation of the Shema,” in Theological Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard
S. Childs, ed. Christopher R. Seitz and Kathryn Greene-­McCreight (Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 1999); see also Grant Macaskill, “The Way the One God Works:
Covenant and Ethics in 1 Corinthians,” in One God, One People, One Future:
Essays in Honor of N. T. Wright, ed. John Anthony Dunne and Eric Lewellen
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 112–­25 (developing Moberly’s thesis in conver-
sation with the narratival scheme of N. T. Wright).
10
David G. Horrell, The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence Inter-
ests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1996), 75; also Richardson, “1 Corinthians,” 59–­74; on the contrary position,
see, e.g., Benjamin W. Millis, “The Social and Ethnic Origins of the Colonists in
Early Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion
and Society, ed. James C. Walters, Daniel N. Schowalter, and Steven J. Friesen
(Leiden: Brill, 2010), 30; Richard M. Rothaus, Corinth, the First City of Greece:
An Urban History of Late Antique Cult and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 31.
 86 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

I join those interpreters viewing 1 Corinthians as an integrative whole,

wherein its various sections demonstrate meaningful thematic inter-
connection, primarily around the theme of unity, or perhaps better,
κοινωνία.11 Many of the integrationist theories now follow in the vein
of Margaret Mitchell’s influential work, naming the theme of unity as
central to the rhetorical aims of the letter, patterned as they were after
Greco-­Roman rhetorical appeals to ὁμόνοία and συμφέρον (mutual
advantage).12 Mitchell identifies the so-­called thesis statement of the
letter in the statement in 1 Corinthians 1:10, underscoring Paul’s
appeal for unity: “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions
among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same
judgment.”13 While important, elevating this particular sentence to a
“thesis” or controlling principle perhaps ignores the function of how
Paul seeks to establish this unity, particularly his appeal to their union
to Christ and their fellowship (κοινωνία) by the Spirit.14 The subject
of internal division in the epistle appears more fundamentally to be
a subset of concerns under the more dominant theme of union with
Christ. The opening chapter spells out the benefit that they receive

11
For a helpful summary of the major positions surrounding the structure
and message of 1 Corinthians, see Matthew R. Malcolm, “The Structure and
Theme of First Corinthians in Recent Scholarship,” CurBR 14, no. 2 (2016):
256–­69.
12
Margaret Mary Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exe-
getical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louis-
ville: Westminster John Knox, 1993). Mitchell’s work is now broadly appealed to
as evidence of the letter’s unity even though many of these studies may or may
not agree with the specific evidentiary features of Mitchell’s claims regarding
Paul’s use of deliberative rhetoric. For an overview of the spread of interpretive
options, see Malcolm, “Structure and Theme,” 259ff.
13
Of course, this is hardly a consensus position, and others have argued
against any compositional or thematic unity (let alone deliberative rhetoric)
beyond the ad hoc concerns the letter addresses. E.g., L. L. Welborn, “The
Corinthian Correspondence,” in All Things to All Cultures: Paul among Jews,
Greeks, and Romans, ed. Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2013), 205–­42.
14
This is also recognized by Victor Paul Furnish, Theology of the First Letter
to the Corinthians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 85 (not-
ing that “one of the most pervasive and decisive themes” of the letter involves
“belonging to Christ” as a means of “belonging to God” [3:23], by whom “all
things are given and all things are claimed” [8:6]).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 87

by virtue of being “in Christ” (1 Cor 1:4–­5). It is “in Christ Jesus”

that the Corinthians are “enriched in all speech and knowledge” and
“lacking nothing” (1:4–­7). Their being “in Christ” secures “wisdom
from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1:30).
It is the prospect of a “Christ divided” that causes Paul to appeal
to unifying reconciliation among the factions (1:13). And it is the
unthinkable possibility of a defiled Christ that draws out Paul’s most
serious warnings against immoral behavior (6:15–­17). Paul draws
out a relational matrix wherein harm against a brother “sin[s] against
Christ” (8:12). Importantly the climax of Paul’s opening prayer for
the Corinthians closes with the declaration that they are “called into
the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:9). This “in Christ”
idea, pace Mitchell, comprises a more cohesive leading theme to
1 Corinthians and is better suited to serve as a thesis that frames the
objective of his overall message.
Tying the sections of 1 Corinthians together are the relational
structures among members of the community and the vital attach-
ments they secure with key figures, leaders, or other individuals and
practices. To correct the sectarian divisions in the community, he
constantly reorients them back to the prescriptive way of ordering
their relationships, beginning with their fellowship in Christ (1 Cor
1:9). Paul here operates with a relational anthropology that assumes
that members of the ekklesia are deeply embedded within the matrix
of their collective social ties and relations, in contrast to more indi-
vidualistic or self-­subsistent notions of the self.15 The initial report of
divisions within them is encapsulated by which leader certain groups
associate under—­I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Peter, I am
of Christ (1 Cor 1:12). Rather than align themselves under charis-
matic individuals (reminding them that Paul and Apollos are merely
“διάκονοι [servants] to the Lord”), Paul urges them to attach them-
selves principally to Christ in whom they have been baptized. Closing
his remarks on the divisions from various leaders, Paul encourages
them as follows: “Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or

15
This study works with a view of the participatory nature of the “person”
as elucidated in Susan Grove Eastman, Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s
Anthropology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 9 (“There is no freestanding
‘self’ in Paul’s letters. . . . Paul’s anthropology is participatory all the way down”).
 88 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

life or death or the present or the future—­all are yours and you are
Christ’s and Christ is of God” (1 Cor 3:22–­23).
A similar application of Paul’s participatory anthropology can be
observed in Paul’s discussion of immoral members in their commu-
nity in 1 Corinthians 5. However one may understand the underly-
ing immorality in this chapter, what is important for our purposes
is the question “And you are puffed up [πεφυσιωμένοι], when you
should rather mourn?” (5:2). The question indicates that not only
are the Corinthians forbearing of the licentious behavior but in some
way approving of the man in question. Chow’s study,16 following
those contending for a background of patronage and benefaction
at Corinth, connects the “arrogance” or “puffed-­up” disposition of
those who condone the immoral behavior with the context of the
influence of powerful patrons in the church—­maintaining their influ-
ence, freedom, and to some extent, authority in the face of flagrant
immorality.17 It could be that the Corinthian pride is not simply
rooted in their libertarian freedom that they have distorted from the
Christian gospel of forgiveness,18 but rather from a context of eco-
nomic dependence under influential patrons. The theory of honorific
patronage may more satisfyingly explain the community’s attitude
toward this man and the improper relational ordering at Corinth.19
The pattern continues into the following chapters. Unautho-
rized sexual relations, addressed in the sixth chapter, are not simply
a private matter, but bear community implications (1 Cor 6:16–­18).
Unbelieving spouses and children draw some protection by virtue of
their connection to their believing spouse or parent (1 Cor 7:14). As
a whole, Paul is consistently concerned with the ordering of their rela-

16
John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992); on the background of patronage and
benefaction in Pauline churches, see Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City:
Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
17
Many commentators do not see patronage as lurking behind any of this
discussion at all. E.g., Fee, First Epistle, 221; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthi-
ans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 228–­36.
18
E.g., Fitzmyer, Corinthians, 235; Fee, First Corinthians, 221.
19
So Richard Horsley, 1 Corinthians (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), 82
(“Perhaps, in the imperial society in which most poor people were economically
dependent in some way on patrons, some in the assembly were economically
dependent on this fellow”).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 89

tional patterns and the interconnected impact that these relationships

have for the larger community. Whether the Corinthians are aligned
under charismatic leaders, or influential men, or households, or civic
rituals, the Corinthians are urged to reconfigure the priorities of their
relationships so that they are properly joined to the Lord within a
pure and faithful community in whom the holy pneuma dwells. The
temple-­oriented exhortations appeal to a mutual building up of the
body at Corinth with Christ as its foundational and conceptual cen-
ter. They are called to be saints, in fellowship with the Son (1:2, 9).

4.1.3. Kοινωνία
The language of koinonia (κοινωνία, as well as μετέχω and their
cognates) supplies important terminology for Paul to develop his
theme of unity in Christ in terms reflective of God’s temple.20 This
finds confirmation in the relevant cultic inscriptive evidence.21 In
this group of literary evidence, κοινωνέω and κοινωνία can be seen
in cultic contexts broadly denoting “participation in sacrifices.”22
Their uses in these contexts do not appear specialized in meaning,
nor do they appear to connote any particular activity beyond simply
partaking in cultic sacrifices. In several instances, esteemed guests

20
Norbert Baumert has recently challenged the assumption that κοινωνέω
and μετέχω and their cognates represent largely synonymous ideas. Norbert
Baumert, Koinonein und Metechein: Eine umfassende semantische Untersuchung
(Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2003), 290, 326–­29, 11–­20. Against this,
interpreters continue to understand both terms as covering the same semantic
range. E.g., Julien M. Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia with the Philippians: A Socio-­
Historical Investigation of a Pauline Economic Partnership (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2014), 326, 29 (concluding that the evidence of overlapping terms in
the sources indicates that the two terms are “practical synonyms”); also Markus
Nikkanen, “Participation in Christ: Paul and Pre-­Pauline Eucharistic Tradition”
(PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2018), 168–­70.
21
See in particular the cultic inscription evidence in Ogereau, Paul’s Koino-
nia, 383–­88; also Nikkanen, “Participation in Christ,” 155–­77.
22
For κοινωνέω, see, e.g., IKosSegre 149, Foundation for a Hero Cult (ca.
300 BCE) (“[L]et not those participating in the sacrifices cultivate the land of
the sanctuary”); IKosHK 4, Asylum Decree of Thelphousa (ca. 242 BCE) (“[T]hey
have invited [the Thelphousians] to participate in the sacrifices”). See the docu-
mentary evidence of koinonia in the context of participation of sacrifices in the
appendix of Ogereau’s study on the κοινωνία word groups. See Ogereau, Paul’s
Koinonia, 355–58; also 385–90.
 90 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

are “invited” or “called” to observe cultic activity. An inscription

honoring Marcus Ulpius Eubiotus (ca. 230 CE) decreed that at the
“invitation of the highest authorities,” he and his sons are honored
with the “privilege of the front seat and a share in the sacrifices and
libations which occur at the religious processions and at the popular
assemblies.”23 Similarly, in mystery cult settings, some of the inscrip-
tions note that the gods “call” or invite participants to the tem-
ple banquet.24 One invitation to the mysteries of Zeus Panamaros
notes that God “always supplies this [call] to all mankind” but it is
“especially to those for whom there is participation in the sacrifices
[κοινωνία τῶν ἱερῶν].”25 The collocation of “call” and koinonia in
the temple in this inscription notably matches Paul’s own language
of calling and koinonia in 1 Corinthians 1:9, where believers are
“called into the fellowship of the Son, Jesus Christ.”
But even with locating “fellowship” in a temple context, a precise
understanding of the vertical dimension of fellowship between divine
and human participants remains challenging to grasp in Pauline dis-
course. Paul can flexibly speak of a fellowship of the gospel, of the
“spirit,” of the “Son,” of suffering, of faith, among other uses.26 Such a
range of applications has prompted Horrell to conclude that koinonia
entails “both vertical and horizontal dimensions, inextricably inter-
twined.”27 In the Corinthian letters, at least, what seems clear is that
their koinonia is not merely in a common experience or belief, but a

23
SEG 21.506; Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia, 383–­84 (καὶ κοινωνίᾳ θυσιῶν
τῶν ἔν τε πομπαῖς καὶ ἐκκλησιαις γεινομένων).
24
SEG 4.247 and 4.250; Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia, 386–­87.
25
SEG 4.250.
26
Cf. Phil 1:5; 2:1; Phlm 17; 1 Cor 1:9, 10:16; 2 Cor 13:13.
27
David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of
Paul’s Ethics, 2nd ed. (London: T&T Clark, 2015), 118. On horizontal and
vertical aspects of κοινωνία, see also J. Smit, “‘Do Not Be Idolaters’: Paul’s Rhet-
oric in First Corinthians 10:1–­22,” NovT 39, no. 1 (1997): 40–­53 (expressing
a priority of emphasis on the vertical, Christological components of κοινωνία
over the social-­horizontal); accord, Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to
the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 751; Josef Hainz, Koinonia:
“Kirche” als Gemeinshaft bei Paulus (Regensburg: Putset, 1982), 90–­132. On
the view that Paul lacks any distinct vertical dimension in koinonia, see C. K.
Barrett, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2nd ed. (London: Continuum, 1994),
40; also James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 91

participation in Christ and the Spirit themselves. Paul’s benediction

at the close of 2 Corinthians appeals to the “fellowship of the Holy
Spirit” (ἡ κοινωνία τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος) (2 Cor 13:13). Similarly,
the opening blessing in 1 Corinthians calls attention to the distinct
calling of Corinthians into “the fellowship of his Son” (κοινωνίαν τοῦ
υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ) (1 Cor 1:9). The genitives expressed here
(both of the pneuma and the Son) strongly suggest that what believ-
ers are sharing in is Christ himself or the “spirit.”28 And although gen-
itives of person are rare,29 it deserves recognition that Paul’s idiolect
with respect to participating in the body and the blood of the Lord
is similarly rare in comparable literary texts and warrants a finding
of Christ himself forming the basis of common participation. Paul
appears to signal that the temple worship of God has been relocated
from a place to a person. In this shift, the cult and its retinue now
surround Jesus Christ himself. Accordingly, the new worship of God
is recast in terms of interpersonal relationality—­principally fellowship
with the resurrected Christ through the Spirit.
Julien Ogereau’s important study on koinonia in Philippians
contends that the weight of the Greco-­Roman papyrological and
epigraphical evidence points to koinonia bearing a predominantly
socioeconomic sense of legal-­commercial partnership (or the Roman
societas).30 This finding fits well the themes and uses in Philippians,

Charismatic Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New
Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 261.
28
See Grant Macaskill, Union with Christ in the New Testament (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013), 205, citing L. S. Thornton, The Common Life
in the Body of Christ, 2nd ed. (London: Dacre Press, 1944), 44 (“A genitive fol-
lowing the word koinonia expresses . . . that which one partakes . . . the object
shared”).
29
E.g., Heinrich Seesemann, Der Begriff ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ im Neuen Testament
(Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1933), 51; cf. Baumert, Koinonein und Metechein,
423–­24 (finding possible Paul’s use of the genitive to refer to a participation in a
person, namely Christ).
30
Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia, 383–­88; also David Daube, “Societas as Con-
sensual Contract,” Cambridge Law Journal 6, no. 3 (1938): 381–­403. As it per-
tains to the context of κοινωνία, see also Paul J. Sampley, Pauline Partnership
in Christ: Christian Community and Commitment in Light of Roman Law (Phil-
adelphia: Fortress, 1980). See also F. Gerald Downing, “Review: Paul’s Koino-
nia with the Philippians: A Socio-­Historical Investigation of a Pauline Economic
 92 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

which emphasizes the financial partnering that the churches in this

area have supplied to Paul’s ministry (Phil 4:14–­20). Confining the
term to the senses of partnership (societas) across the Pauline corpus
is less convincing, however, when compared against the rich cultic
themes evoked in the Corinthian letters.
Taken together, what results is neither a technical term nor a term
of theological participation with highly specialized meaning, but one
that draws on the common way of describing participation in tem-
ple activity. In the same way that one “runs a race” or “eulogizes a
funeral” or “observes Sabbath,” Paul’s koinonia terminology serves as
a way of describing how one engages in temple activity.31 People are
“called” to participation in the temple (κοινωνία τῶν ἱερῶν). The key
development, for Paul, is that the temple worship is now distinctly
interpersonal and relational, built around the set of relationships that
the Corinthians share “in Christ.”

4.2. Movement One: Christ as Temple in the Corinthian

Correspondence
Having drawn out some of the participatory and cultic themes of
1 Corinthians in particular, we are better situated to lay out the prin-
cipal argument. The first movement of the constructive thesis argues
that Paul understood the bodily presence of Jesus in terms of God’s
temple dwelling with his people. We know that Paul tells the Cor-
inthians that they are “God’s Temple” (1 Cor 3:17), “the temple of
the Holy Spirit” (6:19), and “the temple of the living God” (2 Cor
6:16). Some scholars are content to leave the shape of Paul’s discourse
here,32 but this fails to track the associated complex of images that
Paul lays out in the Corinthian letters. It is not the presence of the

Partnership,” JSNT 37, no. 5 (2015): 88 (“Whether termed ‘figurative’ or ‘met-

aphorical,’ Paul’s use extends a common idiom to a new and apparently unprece-
dented field”). This is not to say that Ogereau does not recognize the theological
references that κοινωνία can bear in Paul’s writings. Ogereau is careful to note
the “semantic malleability” of the term and cautions against any singular and
controlling view of the term. See Paul’s Koinonia, 258–­59.
31
Nikkanen, “Participation,” 177 (“Paul’s [fellowship] terminology appears
to be standard sacrificial language”).
32
See the introductory discussion in chapter 4 and the studies cited in nn. 1
and 2.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 93

Spirit alone that is sufficient for Paul’s designation of the community

as the temple. Rather, Paul’s Spirit unity language depends consis-
tently upon the assumption that Christ himself signifies the heavenly
temple, and it is only because the community is united to Christ by
the Spirit that they are deemed God’s temple. The reason Paul pres-
ents the arrangement in components rather than all at once will be
discussed after our overview of the various strands is completed (see
§ 4.3.5). Part of the answer, as will be seen, is that Paul appears to
give prominence to the role of the Spirit due to an imbalanced view
of spiritual gifts among the Corinthians. The Spirit, Paul wants to
emphasize, is “one and the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:11) that works for
the whole body of believers, a presence which they share together to
draw out their distinct identity and ethos—­God’s temple. While in
Paul’s mind the Spirit demarcates the temple because it joins Christ’s
presence with his people, Paul abbreviates the connection in 1 Corin-
thians to accent the shared and distributed quality of the Spirit. The
whole cultic arrangement is articulated in its fullest in 2 Corinthians
4–­5, and to this we now turn.

4.2.1. 2 Corinthians 4–­5—­A House from God, Eternal in the Heavens

What Paul breaks out over a range of chapters in 1 Corinthians, he
presents in a single passage in 2 Corinthians 4:16–­5:10.33 In this
passage, Paul portrays the risen Christ as the locus of the future
heavenly temple. In the intervening time, the Spirit bridges Christ’s
presence with his people in terms evocative of provisional sacred
space. Importantly, Paul explains that “if the earthly tent we live in
is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with
hands [ἀχειροποίητον], eternal in the heavens” (2 Cor 5:1). The
“building from God” here refers to the presence of Christ himself,
an awaited reality that in the interim is experienced by believers as an
“earthly tent” mediated by the Spirit.34 There are layers of complexity

33
A similar rendering of these ideas is presented in Rom 8:1–­31.
34
Among these debates are the origins of Pauline dualism and his beliefs on
intermediate states upon death. C. F. D. Moule explains, “I am not so simple as
to imagine that I can provide clarity and precision where great scholars, past and
present, have confessed to bewilderment.” C. F. D. Moule, “St. Paul and Dual-
ism: The Pauline Conception of Resurrection,” NTS 12, no. 2 (1966): 106.
 94 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

in this text that have been the subject of much debate. What is in
focus here is less a matter of intermediate states and postmortem res-
urrection states of the individual believer,35 but instead concerns the
cluster of associations relating to body, dwelling, heavenly temple,
and presence with the Lord. Paul here contrasts an earthly tent with
a house in heaven not made with hands. He speaks of this heavenly
dwelling as longed-­for clothing that will remedy a form of nakedness,
a state which is the cause of his present groanings.36 The overall pic-
ture is one of progression from a union with Christ by the Spirit to
one of union with Christ in the fullness of his personal presence.
In attempting to clean up the signal from the noise, it is helpful to
visually arrange the various antitheses that Paul sets forth in 2 Corin-
thians 4:16–­5:10:
4:16 Outer nature wastes Inner nature renews
away day by day
4:17 Tribulation Glory
4:18 The seen is The unseen is
temporary eternal
5:1 Earthly tent Building from God
in the heavens
5:2–­4 Naked/Unclothed Clothed
5:4 Mortal Life

35
A good discussion of the prevailing interpretive views on offer for 2 Cor
4–­5 is in Marvin C. Pate, Adam Christology as the Exegetical and Theological Sub-
structure of 2 Corinthians 4:7–­5:21 (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America,
1991), 1–­31. For examples of scholars pressing for a view that interprets being
“absent from the body” in terms of some interim or intermediate state before
final judgment, see John A. T. Robinson, The Body (London: SCM Press, 1952),
17, 77; Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception
of Time (1946), trans. Floyd V. Filson, rev. ed. (London: SCM Press, 1964),
238–­42. See also E. Earle Ellis, “II Corinthians v. 1–­10 in Pauline Eschatology,”
NTS 6, no. 3 (1960): 211–­24.
36
Scholars have observed a similar progression of ideas in Romans 8, where
the gift of the pneuma gives life to dying bodies, promises the hope of resurrec-
tion and glory, and in the meantime offers hope for the things unseen rather than
the seen (the latter of which is the context for present groaning and longing). Cf.
Ellis, “Pauline Eschatology,” 212.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 95

5:6, 8 At home in the At home with the

body, Lord,
away from the away from the
Lord body
5:7 Walk by sight Walk by faith

Importantly, that which is on the “heavenly” register (the column on

the right) is characterized as being “at home with the Lord” and the
state of being “away from the body.” This in turn is linked with being
clothed with a dwelling from God, eternal in the heavens. The life in
the realm of “the seen” is marked by being “at home in the body,”
in a tent, marked by mortality. The realm of the unseen is the eter-
nal and is paired with being “at home with the Lord.” What is given
prominence in the list of adversatives is the repetition of being “with
the Lord,” whether at home with him or away from him (vv. 5, 8).
The reference to the body as “tent” (σκήνος) is significant for its
overtones to the temple. It is possible that Paul has in view a met-
aphor for mere earthly existence. For example, Plato describes the
body as an “earthly tent” (γήϊνον σκήνος);37 in the same way Hip-
pocrates describes the “flight of the soul from the tent of the body”
(ἀπολείπουσα ἡ ψυχὴ τὸ τοῦ σώματος σκῆνος).38 This having been
said, the evidence marshals in favor of a temple inflection in this pas-
sage. Paul does not simply use the term “tent” to describe the body,
but rather the odd pleonasm ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους,
which is woodenly translated as “our earthly dwelling of the tent.”
Crucially, this collocation is found in the Jewish Scriptures to address
the Tent of Meeting, identifying the tabernacle in terms of the house
of the Lord.39 Numbers 9:15 explains that the tabernacle (ἡ σκηνή)

37
Axiochus 366a; Timaeus 100a.
38
Hippocrates, Aphorisms 7.37–38; cf. Wis 9:15 (φθαρτὸν γὰρ σῶμα βαρύνει
ψυχήν, καὶ βρίθει τὸ γεῶδες σκῆνος νοῦν πολυφρόντιδα [the perishable body
weighs down the soul and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind]).
39
See especially 1 Chr 6:32; 9:23; cf. Num 9:15. See also André Feuillet,
“La demeure céleste et la destinée des Chrétiens: Exégèse de ‘II Cor.’, V, 1–­10 et
contribution à l’étude des fondements de l’eschatologie paulinienne,” RSR 44,
no. 3 (1956): 361 (“Mais Paul ne dit pas seulement comme les Grecs que notre
corps est une tente [σκῆνος]; il use de l’expression curieuse ‘maison de la tente’
[οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους] qu’on ne retrouve ailleurs que dans la Bible”).
 96 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

was established with the cloud covering the tent (ἐκάλυψεν ἡ νεφέλη
τὴν σκηνήν), the tent of the covenant (τὸν οἶκον τοῦ μαρτυρίου).
That this is on the right track is confirmed by the adversative of the
same verse, which completes the picture with explicit reference to the
heavenly temple: “we have a dwelling from God, a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens” (5:1).40 The phrase “house not
made with hands [ἀχειροποίητον]” finds important parallels through-
out Scripture. We find similar language in Mark 14:58, referring to
the idea that even if the present temple be destroyed, God will build
another not made with hands (ἀχειροποίητον).41
Paul’s overarching idea in this passage links the heavenly temple
with the presence of Christ and links the earthly tabernacle also with
the presence of Christ, only one mediated by the Spirit. In the tran-
sitional earthly period, the Spirit assures believers that they can still
relate with Christ’s sacred presence in a provisional manner analo-
gous to Israel’s tabernacle experience.42 The attractiveness of “tab-
ernacle” imagery to early Christians as compared to “temple” and
“sanctuary” language in particular lay in its ability to name God’s

40
See also Gupta, “Which ‘Body’ Is a Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19)?” 531
(“[T]he cultic milieu is almost undeniable, given the immediate mention of the
‘building from God’”).
41
Morna Hooker has recently speculated whether this overlap in temple
imagery between Mark, Paul, and the Fourth Gospel indicates Paul’s own famil-
iarity with this tradition, one she claims the evidence points to as a genuine
saying from Jesus. Morna D. Hooker, “‘The Sanctuary of His Body’: Body and
Sanctuary in Paul and John,” JSNT 39, no. 4 (2017): 357. Interestingly, there
are numerous references in the LXX referring to cultic images, namely idols,
as being merely “made by hands” (χειροποίητος), which further reinforces the
cultic dimension to Paul’s language here of the body, dwelling, and tent. Cf. Lev
26:1; Isa 2:18; 31:7; 46:6.
42
Koester demonstrated that early Christian literature found value in tab-
ernacle imagery precisely because it corresponded with the early Christian need
for God’s presence in a time of transition and change. Craig R. Koester, The
Dwelling of God: The Tabernacle in the Old Testament, Intertestamental Jewish
Literature, and the New Testament (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Asso-
ciation, 1989), 184–­86. Koester compares this usage with similar attitudes to
tabernacle imagery reflected in later Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish
literature.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 97

formal presence with his people in the context of impermanence and

awaiting a fuller consummation.43
For Paul, both the earthly and heavenly temple presence of Christ
are not antithetical to each other but related along a single spectrum.
The image Paul portrays is not that they will be merely “clothed” in
heavenly dwelling, but “further clothed” (5:4), expressing a down-­
payment idea that began with the Spirit and seeks fulfillment along
the same lines. The experiences are not two distinct ones, but the
same one at different points along the way. Since Paul longs to be
clothed in his future dwelling with the Lord, the image presumes that
they are presently clothed with Christ by the Spirit in baptism (Gal
3:27; Rom 13:14; 1 Cor 12:12–­13). The imagery of being clothed
often serves as biblical locution for spirit endowment.44 Whereas the
baptism-­unity formulation in 1 Corinthians 12:13 discusses baptismal
unity in terms of spirit, the parallel formulation in Galatians 3:27
uses the locution of being clothed with Christ. Paul’s message is that
Christ’s presence, already enjoyed in the present time, will be con-
summated with a fuller presence. That a conferred status is spoken of
in both present and future terms is a familiar phenomenon in Pau-
line theology (i.e., the already-­not yet).45 Their “clothing” will be

43
See also Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Cultic Language in Qumran and
in the NT,” CBQ 38, no. 2 (1976): 162 (explaining that early Christians did
not “re-­interpret cultic institutions and terminology” the way that contemporary
Jewish literature did to characterize their own longing for a fuller restoration of
God’s presence with his people; they went further so as to “express a new reality
in cultic language”).
44
E.g., Judg 6:34 (“The spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon”); also LAB 27:9
(“[Kenaz] was clothed with the spirit of power and was changed”); cf. John R.
Levison, Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 174–­75. Levi-
son links the reference to ἐπενδύομαι (5:4) and its curious double prefix to con-
vey the idea of being “further clothed,” with the Dry Bones passage in Ezek 37,
which conveys similar ideas of overlayering. In Ezek 37, God promises to cause
breath to enter and “I will lay sinews upon you and will cause flesh to come up
upon you, and I will stretch skin upon you” (Ezek 37:5–­6). Flesh coming up
upon the sinews, Levison contends, matches the Pauline idea of being clothed,
and “further clothed” with heavenly dwelling. Whether or not this is correct,
Levison’s eye for such connections is remarkable.
45
As an example, while believers in the Spirit receive the “spirit of adoption,”
they also “groan inwardly while [they] wait for adoption” (Rom 8:15, 23). Note
the overlap of the groaning for the future expectation in both Rom 8:23 and
 98 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

“further clothed” with their heavenly dwelling in Christ. This down-­

payment of the Spirit is not perfected by more of the Spirit, but with
the return of Christ bodily, when believers will be at “home with the
Lord” (5:8).

4.2.2. 1 Corinthians 3:11—­Christ as the Cornerstone of the

Temple in Paul
As was set forth in 2 Corinthians 4–­5, Paul operates with virtually the
same spirit-­Christ-­temple pattern in 1 Corinthians. However, it is pre-
sented in a more graduated manner throughout this letter. The first
key development appears in the discussion of leaders in 1 Corinthians
3. Paul in this passage reveals knowledge of a tradition that names
Christ himself as the foundation stone of God’s restored temple.46 In
1 Corinthians 3:11, Christ is named the “foundation” (θεμέλιον) of
the building—­an image that he develops with reference ultimately to
the community itself as “God’s temple” (v. 16).
Importantly, a parallel with this is found in Romans 9:33, where
Paul explains the stumbling of Israel as follows: “As it is written, ‘See,
I am laying in Zion a stone [λίθον] that will make people stumble,
a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will
not be put to shame.’” Paul here combines two Isaianic passages (Isa
8:14 and 28:16) linked together by their use of both temple and
stone imagery, which, consistent with Jewish exegesis, permits dif-
ferent passages of overlapping terms to form a mutually interpretive
unit.47 Strikingly, in the Isaiah 8:14a reference, God himself is iden-
tified as the sanctuary and the stumbling stone: “He will become a

2 Cor 5:2. The Romans passage describes the pneuma as the first fruits (τὴν
ἀπαρχήν) of the future reality, whereas 2 Cor 5:5 uses the analogous imagery of
down payment (τὸν ἀρραβῶνα).
46
See, e.g., Luke 20:17–­18; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:6–­8. On the New Testament
tradition of Christ as cornerstone of the temple and the logical development of
this idea in these texts, see Macaskill, Union with Christ, 144–­91; also the discus-
sion in Hooker, “Sanctuary.”
47
The practice of gezera shawa constitutes one of the more familiar principles
of Jewish and early Christian exegesis of biblical texts. Instone Brewer explains
that gezera shawa is “the interpretation of one text in the light of another to
which it is related by a shared word or phrase.” David Instone-­Brewer, Techniques
and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), 18; see
also Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (repr.; Oxford:
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 99

sanctuary, a stone one strikes against.”48 Isaiah 28 looks ahead to a

restoration of Israel, when the Lord will bring judgment and will be a
“diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people” (v. 5). Importantly,
the LXX describes this sure foundation both with the terms of foun-
dation (θεμέλια), stone (λίθον), and cornerstone (ἀκρογωνιαῖον), the
first two of which Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 3:11 and Romans 9:33,
respectively. Furthermore, Paul also uses the language of σκάνδαλον
to describe the stumbling of Israel, which Isaiah 8:14b anticipates:
“For both houses of Israel, he [the Lord] will become a rock one
stumbles over49—­a trap and a snare for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”
With respect to the Jews, Paul in 1 Corinthians describes the cross of
Christ as “a stumbling stone to the Jews” (Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον)
and “foolishness to gentiles” (ἔθνεσιν δὲ μωρίαν) (1 Cor 1:23).
Paul’s own combined references in Romans concerning the future
temple and its foundation stone in Zion speak at once to Israel’s own
stumbling over Jesus Christ and to the inviolable symbol of hope that
the temple signifies: the one who believes in him will not be put to
shame (οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται) (Rom 9:33; Isa 28:16).50 In 1 Cor-
inthians 3, consistent with the Isaianic idea that the Lord himself
will be the sanctuary, Paul names Christ as the only foundation for
the temple (1 Cor 3:11) upon which the “churches” are built. Since

Clarendon Press, 1989), 156–­57. The so-­called seven principles of Hillel on Jew-
ish interpretation are found in t. Sanh. 7.11; Avot R. Nat. 37.
48
Cf. ἔσται σοι εἰς ἁγίασμα (Isa 8:14).
49
On the traditions of “stone texts” in both Peter and Paul, see Frank Thiel-
man, “Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom 9.32–­3: Its Origin and Meaning,”
NTS 64, no. 3 (2018): 362–­77. The fact that both Peter and Paul both engage
in the same curious combination of readings strongly suggests an earlier tradition
and indicates its spread within early Christian traditions. So also Grant Macaskill,
“Dynamic Reciprocity and Ontological Affinity in the Pauline Account of Sol-
idarity,” IJST 22, no. 1 (2020): 21–­23. Cf. Ps 118:21–­22 and the tradition of
the “cornerstone” that the builders rejected in connection with Eph 2:20; 1 Pet
2:4–­7; also Acts 4:11; Luke 20:17; Matt 21:42; Mark 12:10–­11.
50
The relationship between the restoration of God’s dwelling and not being
put to shame is an important refrain among the prophets. Importantly, Joel 2:27
pairs God’s temple presence among Israel with the assurance that his people will
not be put to shame. The same idea is expressed in Zeph 3:11. The Psalms are
filled with these refrains in the context of “taking refuge” and putting their hope
in the Lord and being rescued from shame. See, e.g., Pss 25:2, 20; 31:1, 17;
71:1; 119:116.
 100 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Christ himself is set apart as uniquely the foundation of the building

of God,51 it cannot follow for Paul that Christ’s identification with
the temple is descriptive or normative for believers or leaders. On
the contrary, Paul places Christ in the architecture of the temple as
irreplaceably foundational, tied to the prophetic image of the temple
as eternal and enduring, and identified with the one in whom his
people put their hope. Because Christ is the chief cornerstone of the
temple, the logic follows that those who worship the Lord are drawn
into the temple motif as those who “fellowship in the Son” and are
“in Christ.” The new temple complex is no longer merely a matter
of physical space and rituals, but rather in socio-­relational concepts,
therefore necessitating a new set of cultic terminology recast in terms
of “edifying” relationships, love, unity, and the joining together of
people by the Spirit.

4.2.2.1. Christ’s Presence and the Metaphor of the Body

In forwarding the argument that Paul regards Christ himself as signi-
fying the preeminent place of the temple among his people, it is help-
ful to consider the likely difficult and potentially scandalous decision
in these letters to closely associate the community of believers with
the body of Christ. As our review of the Jewish temple has demon-
strated, there is a long tradition of safeguarding the divine presence
in reverential degrees of distance. In Scripture, it is not his whole
being, but rather the eyes of God that will look upon the holy place
(1 Kgs 8:29).52 Only his “name” dwells in the sacred place (Deut
12:11; 26:2). To use Levenson’s phrase, “his presence is not gross
and tangible, but subtle and delicate.”53 To link, then, the Corinthian
believers and their “body” with both “God’s Temple” (1 Cor 3:17)
and “the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:27) would have undoubtedly
raised the theological anxieties of early believers if not transgressed
them altogether.

51
1 Cor 3:11 (θεμέλιον γὰρ ἄλλον οὐδεὶς δύναται θεῖναι παρὰ τὸν κείμενον,
ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστός).
52
See the discussion of glory and presence in § 2.2.3.
53
Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion (New York: HarperCollins, 1987), 125;
see also Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 101

To be clear, Paul develops the body metaphor so that just as a

body has many parts, so it is with the Corinthians, who are to func-
tion as a unity in their diversity (1 Cor 12:12). But Paul goes one step
further. The core identity marker as “the body of Christ” functions
beyond analogical metaphor. They are not merely like the body of
Christ, that is what they are. Paul uses copulative language to denote
something qualitative to the identity of the Corinthians: “you are the
body of Christ” (Υμεῖς δέ ἐστε σῶμα Χριστοῦ) (1 Cor 12:27). Erin
Heim’s study of Pauline metaphors reminds us that Paul adopts met-
aphors that renders “profound theological truths” that “cannot be
communicated in any other way.”54 The only reason, it seems, that
Paul would risk invoking such potentially problematic imagery was
that there was no other way to express this idea. Christ is not anal-
ogous to the temple; for Paul, Christ is the temple. And if the Spirit
joins his people to Christ, his people must also be understood in
terms of Christ’s temple and Christ’s body. The provisions of temple
worship are no longer a matter of stone and priestly apparatus, but
of physical bodies, beginning with Christ himself as the chief corner-
stone and the persons who are joined to him by the Spirit.
It is not argued here that temple serves as the controlling idea
of Paul’s larger theology and gospel message. Nor does this chapter
defend the idea that “cultic imagery” or “temple logic” represents
a consistent set of images that is reducible to a singular principle.
Paul’s letters, on the contrary, reveal a profound set of intercon-
nected themes, motifs, and images that link up to form a wide array of
theological ideas and applications. What this section more modestly
proposes is that Christ signifies for Paul the conviction that God’s
presence abides with his people by the Spirit in terms dependent on
the temple. Because God’s presence is now with his people in Christ,
this divine presence evokes cultic correspondences. Therefore, this
presence requires drawing from a range of images, from Scripture,
concerning how God’s sacred presence is properly maintained in cov-
enant communities. But because this presence is unlike any that has

54
Erin M. Heim, Adoption in Galatians and Romans: Contemporary Met-
aphor Theories and the Pauline Huiothesia Metaphors (Leiden: Brill Academic,
2017), 2–­3.
 102 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

come before (in the form of Christ bodily), Paul must also creatively
redraw the symbology of sacred space to include innovative associa-
tions with other images such as body, members, love, edification, and,
of course, Spirit.
Importantly, Paul does not seem to draw from these sources in a
discernibly systematic or systemizable way. Christ’s temple presence
is developed by Paul around a complex, even asymmetrical configu-
ration of Jewish temple ritual and sacrifices that elude summarization
into a clear system.55 Christ can be described as the foundation of
the temple (1 Cor 3:11), or he can be the glory within the temple
(2 Cor 3:18), or he can be described as the heavenly dwelling itself
(2 Cor 5:1–­5). Even the rituals pertaining to Paul’s “cultic imagery”
similarly evade a form of consistency one might expect from a careful
reader of the Jewish Scriptures. The rendering of Paul’s use of περὶ
ἁμαρτίας in Romans 8:3, for example, has been argued to signify a
“sin offering” that is offered for purification in the Day of Atone-
ment.56 But Christ’s sacrifice is also described in terms of the Pass-
over lamb (1 Cor 5:7). On one side, the sacrificial offering is spotless
and pure, whereas on the other side, the scapegoat is loathsome and
to be removed in Old Testament patterns. That Jesus is portrayed as
both—­thus blending aspects of some form of substitution, purifica-
tion, and priestly service—­creates some interpretive pressure on how
these are handled in light of the scriptural antecedents. We might
add that from Romans 3:25, Christ appears both to serve as sacrifice

55
Cf. Stephen Finlan, The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atonement
Metaphors (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004); cf. Gupta, Worship, 220.
56
While debated, I agree with those who affirm that Paul uses ἁμαρτίας
in keeping with the LXX term for ‫ חטאת‬meaning “sin offering” appurtenant
to the Day of Atonement (although the sense of the Hebrew is debated). On
ἁμαρτίας in Romans 8, see, e.g., N. T. Wright, “The Meaning of Περὶ Ἁμαρτίας
in Romans 8.3,” in Studia Biblica 1978: III. Papers on Paul and Other New
Testament Authors, ed. E. A. Livingstone (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1980), 453–59; Peter Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen: Van-
denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 107; James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8, vol. 38A
(Waco: Thomas Nelson, 1988), 414. On whether ‫ חטאת‬is best translated “sin
offering,” guilt offering, or “purification,” cf. Jacob Milgrom, “Sin-Offering or
Purification-Offering,” VT 21, no. 2 (1971): 237–39 with Richard H. Bell, “Sac-
rifice and Christology in Paul,” JTS 53, no. 1 (2002): 1–27.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 103

and also the mercy seat of the Most Holy Place.57 Gathercole likely
evaluates the picture correctly: “The imagery here collapses as Paul
describes as encompassing almost the whole sacrificial system in his
death for sins.”58 This incompatibility of cultic rites and images sug-
gests that what is meaningful is not the images themselves, but the
thing being defined through or by them, namely Christ’s presence.
What binds this complex of images together in 1 Corinthians is the
Spirit-­mediated presence of Christ with his people and the obligations
that this new identity “in Christ” requires.

4.3. Movement Two: The Spirit and the Temple in First

Corinthians

4.3.1. Spirit as the Connecting Bridge of Presence in Absence

Having set out the claim that Paul regards Christ, not merely the
Spirit, to be the principal locus of the heavenly temple, this study
can now move to a description of the role of the Spirit in actual-
izing this presence among believers. While it is important for Paul
elsewhere to name the divine presence in terms of Christ himself, it
is also important for Paul to maintain the reality that Jesus is absent
bodily in their time. Consequently, while Christ signifies God’s pres-
ence with his people, it is equally true for Paul that Christ “was raised
[and] is at the right hand of God” (Rom 8:34). In other words, the
problem that the Spirit addresses for Paul concerns location. This is
true on two fronts. First, whereas God’s sacred presence was confined
principally to a single location that was previously disclosed only to
Israel—­the place where the Lord chooses to make his name dwell—­Paul’s
mission to the gentiles draws on the prophetic call to the “nations” to
bring their offering of praise to the Lord “in every place” where they
may call upon the name of the Lord (1 Cor 1:2). Spirit, in this way,
opens an unprecedented means of access to worship the Lord that is

57
E.g., Simon J. Gathercole, “Paul’s Christology,” in The Blackwell Compan-
ion to Paul, ed. Stephen Westerholm (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2011),
182; and Michael P. Barber and John A. Kincaid, “Cultic Theosis in Paul and
Second Temple Judaism,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 5, no. 2
(2015): 254.
58
Gathercole, “Paul’s Christology,” 182.
 104 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

not locationally bound.59 Second, because the location of Christ is

in an ascended state, his presence with his people must be spoken of
in terms of a joining or uniting (κολλάω) to Christ in “one Spirit”
(1 Cor 6:17). Having been baptized into “one body,” in the waters
of the “one Spirit,” the saints are now called members of the “body of
Christ” (1 Cor 12:27). Without Paul’s “Spirit” language, Paul lacks
the means to actualize the presence of Christ with his people in their
present time.
This way of understanding pneuma as a means of presence amid
absence finds support in the way Paul uses pneuma in 1 Corinthians
5:3–­5.
For though absent in body, I am present in spirit [παρὼν δὲ
τῷ πνεύματι]; and as if present I have already pronounced
judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has
done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is
present with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to hand
this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that
[the] spirit60 may be saved in the day of the Lord.61

What the phrase “present in spirit” means in today’s discourse is a

gesture of solidarity and well-­wishing in absentia. Without using
the language of pneuma, Paul elsewhere can express his desire to
be present “face to face” instead of merely present in his own heart
(προσώπῳ οὐ καρδία) (e.g., 1 Thess 2:17). However, in this passage,
Paul communicates something more than a desire to be with them
in person.

59
Cf. John 4:21–­24 (developing this idea that worship is not bound to a
particular sacred mountain, nor even in Jerusalem, but that “worship in spirit
and truth” opens up the possibility for a new truth in worship—­an invitation of
worship to the Samaritans, to women, and to all the nations).
60
The NRSV, like other English translations, has made the pneuma posses-
sive with respect to the immoral man (“his spirit may be saved”) and thus used
in an anthropological sense. The Greek leaves the attribution undefined: ἵνα τὸ
πνεῦμα σωθῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου.
61
On the background concerning this passage, see Andrew D. Clarke, Secu-
lar and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-­Historical and Exegetical Study
of 1 Corinthians 1–­6 (1993; repr., Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2006), 73–­88;
a full-­length study can be found in David Raymond Smith, “Hand This Man
over to Satan”: Curse, Exclusion and Salvation in 1 Corinthians 5 (London: T&T
Clark, 2009).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 105

Vital to Paul’s use of pneuma here is the qualifying characteri-

zation that his “spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus”
(1 Cor 5:4). Equally important to grasp is the overall tenor of his
instruction in this section: Paul pronounces judgment upon the per-
son and instructs the Corinthian assembly to “hand [him] over to
Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Cor 5:5). He accompanies
that injunction with the instruction to “clean out the old yeast so
that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened” (1 Cor
5:7a). Finally, he punctuates this with the statement that “Christ, our
paschal lamb, has been sacrificed” (v. 7b). With these cultic anchor
points in hand, Paul’s pneuma language of presence in absence finds
more coherence in the larger context of his identification with the
community as “the temple of God” (1 Cor 3:16–17).62 This is fur-
ther supported by the use of the word “destruction,” indicated by
the Greek ὅλερος (5:5), and the commandment to “remove” or clean
out (ἐκκαθαρῶ) (5:7). Rosner observes that the former in particular
bears links with the Hebrew verbs ‫( חרם‬ḥerem) and ‫( כרת‬kareth), each
bearing a sense of destruction and removal in the form of community
exclusion.63 In sum, Paul’s pneuma language here operates in terms
of temple preservation and the joint responsibility the churches bear
in maintaining temple purity.
The inclusion of the possessive pronoun “my spirit” in verse 4 has
complicated the question for interpreters as to whether Paul refers
to his own anthropological pneuma or the divine Spirit. Fee notes
that the use of ἐμοῦ in this verse is in the emphatic position, stress-
ing the reference to Paul’s own person.64 Given that these verses are
set up with the insight that some of the Corinthians are puffed up
(ἐφυσιώθησάν) because they think that Paul “is not coming” to them
(4:18), this supports a finding for the actual presence of Paul himself
to be in view rather than simply the divine Spirit in an unqualified
sense. But separating the divine from the anthropological pneuma
here would obfuscate what Paul portrays pneuma to accomplish in a
cultic setting: the whole temple building (or edification) is in view in

62
See Brian S. Rosner, “Temple and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 5,” TynBul 42
(1991): 137–­45.
63
Rosner, “Temple and Holiness,” 138; cf. William Horbury, “Extirpation
and Excommunication,” VT 35 (1985): 13–­38.
64
Fee, First Corinthians, 224.
 106 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

this discourse. Pneuma is for Paul a power that permits both Paul and
Christ to be present in the shared context of a temple setting.
This idea helps explain the remainder of passages where Paul
discusses union with Christ by means of the pneuma. As often as
the pneuma is discussed in terms of how Christ is with them and
they “in him,” Paul also speaks of the pneuma to address the current
absence that believers feel when they are “away from the Lord” and
in a period of waiting (e.g., 2 Cor 5:5–­8). Paul’s discussion of the
Spirit in Romans 8 uses the image of first fruits of the Spirit (τὴν
ἀπαρχὴν τοῦ πνεύματος), a reality that signifies a received portion of
a future reality. As elsewhere, pneuma consoles absence with a form
of presence that awaits a fuller reunion. Earlier in that chapter Paul
explains that “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells
in you” (8:11). But this dwelling is inchoate and provisional. The
Spirit’s dwelling in their present time is marked with “groaning” until
they wait for “the redemption of [their] bodies” (8:23).

4.3.2. Spirit and Temple in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6

Paul, in two related statements during the letter, appeals to the Cor-
inthians with the reminder that they are God’s temple with reference
to the pneuma that dwells in them.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and the
Spirit of God dwells among you? [οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ναὸς θεοῦ
ἐστε καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ οἰκεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν;] (1 Cor 3:16)
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy
Spirit among you, who you have received from God? [οὐκ
οἴδατε ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν ἁγίου πνεύματός
ἐστιν οὗ ἔχετε ἀπὸ θεοῦ;] (1 Cor 6:19)65

These passages present the clearest statements connecting pneuma

and temple and deserve close examination. Both questions in these
verses identify the pneuma as being “from God” (or “of God”). Both
describe the Corinthians in terms of νάος, which I have rendered

65
Both translations are mine.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 107

“temple.”66 Both of these verses arise, however, out of related but

different contexts and need to be analyzed separately.
In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul continues on the theme that occupies
much of 1 Corinthians 1–­4: the internal divisions concerning leaders,
“whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas” (1 Cor 3:22; 1:12). Impor-
tantly, Paul frames this entire section (1 Cor 3:1–­23) in terms of
pneuma beginning with the rebuke that they are not acting as “spir-
itual people” (ὡς πνευματικοῖς) but rather as people of the flesh,
infants in Christ (ἀλλ᾿ ὡς σαρκίνοις, ὡς νηπίοις ἐν Χριστῷ). Hence
in verse 4, “For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul,’ and another, ‘I
belong to Apollos,’” Paul asks, “are you not merely human?” Paul
then proceeds to demonstrate that what unites the Corinthians as
a whole is not one leader over the other, since both are “coworkers
of God” (θεοῦ γάρ ἐσμεν συνεργοί) (3:9). Instead, they are God’s
building, God’s field, and God’s temple—­as temple, built on the
foundation of Jesus Christ (3:11), and as a field, enabled to grow by
God alone (3:7). The role of leaders such as Paul and Apollos are
only to “water” the Corinthian “churches” and “to build” on that
foundation.
The cultic details of this passage are again worth noting. First,
the language of “building” plays on an important theme in the bib-
lical and extrabiblical literature with respect to the temple.67 Scholars
have observed that the theme of “building” (or not building in the
case of David) finds nodal significance in the prophetic texts for the

66
Pace Newton and Hogeterp, Paul here does not seem to make much of any
distinction of νάος over against ἱερόν indicating the inner sanctuary as opposed
to the larger complex. Cf. Michael Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran
and in the Letters of Paul (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 54;
Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpretation of
Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence (Leuven: Peeters, 2006), 323.
67
For several recent discussions, see, e.g., Eva Mroczek, “How Not to Build
a Temple: Jacob, David, and the Unbuilt Ideal in Ancient Judaism,” Journal for
the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 46, no. 4–­5
(2015): 512–­46; David Shepherd, “When He Comes, Will He Build It? Temple,
Messiah and Targum Jonathan,” Aramaic Studies 12 (2014): 89–­107; on this
theme in a more full-­length study, see Andrew Mark Stirling, “Transformation
and Growth: The Davidic Temple Builder in Ephesians” (PhD diss., University
of Aberdeen, 2012), 66–­103.
 108 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

future restoration of the temple.68 Hence, Zechariah looks to the one

“whose name is Branch” and “he shall build the temple of the Lord”
(Zech 6:12); Isaiah 66:1 poses this question to Israel: “What is the
house that you will build for me?” Hence, placing leaders such as Paul
and Apollos in the commission of temple building (upon the founda-
tion of Christ) taps into a line of prophetic and messianic expectation
that God’s eschatological temple restoration is under way.69
Likewise, the language of “destroying” (φθείρω) the temple
brings into sharper relief a well-­ integrated cultic theme, where
φθείρω connotes less actual destruction but more likely the pollu-
tion of sacred space.70 Whichever corrupting or destructive activity
is indicated here, we can be certain that Paul still refers to the prob-
lem of factions and leadership in keeping with the primary point in
this section. Note also that when this subject of belonging to Paul
or Apollos or Cephas is introduced in 1 Corinthians 1:12–­13, Paul
asks, “Has Christ been divided?” (μεμέρισται ὁ Χριστός;) (illustrat-
ing an unthinkable dividing or physical separation of Christ himself
among different groups). The connections here solidify the idea
that the chief identity indicator of the “temple” is not the commu-
nity itself, nor even the indwelling Spirit within that community,
but rather Christ with whom they are joined.
The second occurrence where Paul designates the assemblies as
the “temple of the Holy Spirit” is in 1 Corinthians 6:12–­20, where
he has moved on from the subject of leaders to the subject of for-
nication. The application of this temple discourse to a new situa-
tion supports the idea that it holds a key place in Paul’s system of
thought. Change in context notwithstanding, it remains clear that
the organizing idea behind his instruction in this passage remains

68
These texts include Isa 44–­45; Zech 4:9; 6:12–­13. See also the evidence
from the Targums, including T. Jon. Zech 6.12–­13. On these, see the above
noted studies as well as the discussion in Jostein Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel:
Die Tempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner Messianischen Sendung
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 25–­89. Cf. 2 Sam 7 and Sib. Or. 5.414–­33.
69
On the discussion of “building” throughout 1 Corinthians, see § 4.3.6.
70
E.g., Plutarch, Quaest. rom. 109 (89 E–­F); Αeschines, Ctes. 3.113. Both of
these references use the verb with reference to priestly and cultic contamination.
See Ethan Johnson, “Sacrilege and Temple Imagery” (PhD diss., University of
St Andrews, 2022). The inclination to read “destruction” into these texts comes
from our vantage point of history, but most scholars agree that Paul is innocent
of the fate of the Jerusalem temple in these texts.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 109

centered around the temple and the related concerns of purification

in maintaining temple purity.71 Ringing in the ears of his hearers is the
command to “drive out the wicked person from among you” (1 Cor
5:13). Further indicative of the cultic context are the references to
the yeast that threatens to leaven the whole dough and to Christ, the
“paschal lamb” (5:7). Paul frames these remarks with reference to
the incommensurability of the wicked (ἄδικοι) who will not inherit
the kingdom of God (6:9), compared to those who were “washed,
sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in
the Spirit of God” (6:10).72
The climactic instruction of this section is the command to “glo-
rify God with your body” as Paul reminds them that they were
bought with a price (6:20). The recurrence and variances with how
body and bodies (τὸ σῶμα / τὰ σώματα) arise in this passage require
careful handling. He begins by asking: “Do you not know that your
bodies are members of Christ?” (οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν μέλη
Χριστοῦ ἐστιν;) (6:15). The neuter plural of “bodies” (τὰ σώματα)
here does not match up with the injunction in verse 20, deploying the
singular dative when urging that they glorify God with their “body”
(τῷ σώματι ὑμῶν).73 Νor does the plural form of “bodies” in verse
15 align with verse 19 with its reminder that “the body [τὸ σῶμα] of
you [pl. ὑμῶν] is a temple of the Holy Spirit among you [pl. ὑμῖν]”

71
Among other important insights, Yulin Liu’s useful study of 1 Cor 1–­7
argues that the central idea in the letter surrounds temple purity as informed by
both Jewish and Greco-­Roman cultic practice. See Yulin Liu, Temple Purity in
1–­2 Corinthians (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 70–­194.
72
Dunn contends (against relatively older interpretations of this passage)
that Paul is not describing a baptismal context here (despite references to wash-
ing in the name of the Lord and in the Spirit), but that he discusses a broader
conversion-­initiation context. E.g., James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit:
A Re-­Examination of the New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Rela-
tion to Pentecostalism Today (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), 104; cf.
Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 3rd ed. (Neukirchen-­Vluyn:
Patmos Verlag, 2012), 1:433–­34. See also Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R.
Cross, eds., Baptism, the New Testament and the Church: Historical and Contem-
porary Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press,
1999) (including essays interacting with Dunn’s arguments among other related
issues on the baptism and Christian conversion complex).
73
Some variants harmonize τὰ σώματα in verse 19 to agree with verse 15.
These include a correction to Codex A, along with L, Ψ, and 33; Texts support-
ing the singular τὸ σῶμα include 𝔓46, ℵ, A, B, C, D, and 1739.
 110 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

(6:19).74 Indeed, an interplay of collective and individual senses of

the term “body” appear in view in tracing through Paul’s language
here. Importantly, verse 18 makes reference to sinning against “his
own body” (εἰς τὸ ἴδιον σῶμα), strongly suggesting a possessive and
hence individual sense of the term.75
These variances have created the puzzles that ensued in schol-
arship over whether Paul applies these cultic images individually or
communally or both.76 Most of the interpreters consulted here opt
for a “both/and” approach such that the communal identity of the
temple is also applied to individual believers.77 But for the reasons
that follow, this view cannot be what Paul had in mind in this passage.
It bears mentioning at the outset that the “in you” (ἐν ὑμῖν) language
in these texts matches the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible
when God’s presence is said to “dwell among you/them.” Exodus
25:8 is representative of this: “Have them make me a sanctuary, so
that I may dwell among them [ἐν ὑμῖν].”78 Ezekiel also prophesies

74
The marker “pl.” indicates the second person plural.
75
Compare R. Kempthorne, “Incest and the Body of Christ: A Study of
1 Corinthians 6:12–­20,” NTS 14, no. 4 (1968): 573 (finding ἴδιον to be ren-
dered not as the individual’s body, but simply “his” body, which is the church,
consistent with the corporate sense in 1 Cor 3:16) with Gupta, “Which ‘Body’
Is a Temple?” 530 (finding both individual and collective senses to inform Paul’s
use of the body imagery).
76
Interestingly, when the word “body” is used with respect to Christ
directly, and only here, the occurrences of σῶμα are articular. Hence, the bread
that is broken is a sharing in “the body of Christ” (κοινωνία τοῦ σώματος τοῦ
Χριστοῦ) (10:16; 11:24). Likewise, the one who partakes of the Lord’s Supper
in an unworthy manner is answerable for “the body and the blood of the Lord”
(ἔνοχος ἔσται τοῦ σώματος καὶ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ κυρίου) (11:27). By contrast,
when the Corinthians are deemed to be “[the] body of the Lord,” the phrase
is anarthrous. So 1 Cor 12:27 declares, “Now you are [the] body of Christ and
individually members of it” (Ὑμεῖς δέ ἐστε σῶμα Χριστοῦ καὶ μέλη ἐκ μέρου).
The same principle applies in the copulative phrases where the Corinthians are
deemed “temple of God.” 1 Cor 3:16 (Οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ναὸς θεοῦ ἐστε); 1 Cor
6:19 (ἢ οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι τὸ σῶμα ὑμῶν ναὸς τοῦ ἐν ὑμῖν ἁγίου πνεύματός ἐστιν).
77
E.g., Fee, First Corinthians, 291; Thiselton, Corinthians, 474; Conzel-
mann, Corinthians, 112; Wright, PFG, 712–­13; also Gupta, “Which ‘Body’ Is a
Temple?” 531.
78
See also Num 5:3; Lev 26:12. See also the discussion in § 2.2.3 regarding
the LXX avoidance to translate ‫ ׁשׁכן‬in terms of dwelling.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 111

in terms of the placement of the glory in their midst with the same
language: καὶ δώσω τὴν δόξαν μου ἐν ὑμῖν.79
It is difficult in the context of Paul’s argument to understand why
it would be important for Paul to stress that the individual Christian
is called the temple in which God dwells by his spirit.80 The overall
import of Paul’s temple language appears thoroughly distributive in
its application and collective in its identity. The logic of these texts
consistently indicates that individuals possess the capacity to harm
the collective sanctity of the assembly by their ungodly or wicked
actions (e.g., 1 Cor 5:6–­11; 6:15). One man’s fornication is decried
for its impact on Christ, with whom the other members are joined.
One brother’s harm over the conscience of another brother is likewise
regarded as a “sin against Christ” (8:12). When the incestuous man
(5:1) is removed from the assembly, his being handed over to Satan
necessarily involves removal from God’s dwelling presence. If this
immoral individual remains a “temple” in his own right, the urgency
of the passage loses all of its force. If the individual reading is upheld,
the person removed from fellowship could still regard himself as wor-
shipping within his own individual temple. The better reading in this
instance is that his removal means the purification of the presence for
the entire assembly.
This is not to suggest that Paul has no place for individual believ-
ers to regard themselves as holy and sacred. On the contrary, they
are saints (1 Cor 1:2).81 However, the arguments made by schol-
ars in pressing for a both-­and (individual-­communal) dynamic to this

79
Ezek 39:21: “I will place my glory among you [καὶ δώσω τὴν δόξαν μου
ἐν ὑμῖν], and all the nations will see my judgment, that I have made, by my hand,
that I brought upon them.” Translation is mine.
80
See also Bertil E. Gärtner, The Temple and the Community in Qumran
and the New Testament: A Comparative Study in the Temple Symbolism of the
Qumran Texts and the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1965), 141.
81
See Scot McKnight, “Saints Re-­Formed: The Extension and Expansion
of Hagios in Paul,” in One God, One People, One Future: Essays in Honor of N. T.
Wright, ed. John Anthony Dunne and Eric Lewellen (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2018), 220 (“It is the presence of God in the Holy Spirit that renders a person a
‘saint’”).
 112 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

temple imagery likely make more of the evidence than is warranted.82

For instance, Gupta offers Romans 12:1–­3, and its call to “offer your
bodies as a living sacrifice,” as an example of cultic imagery that sup-
ports an individual reading, given its appeal to the “renewing of the
mind” (12:2).83 Arguments like this neglect the Pauline character of
these appeals to the transformation of the “mind,” which is seldom, if
ever, indicative of individuated personhood. In Pauline texts, appeals
to have “the same mind” (τὸ αὐτὸ φρονῆτε) (Phil 2:2; 4:2) and “same
purpose” (ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ νοῒ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ γνώμῃ) (1 Cor 1:10) are
appeals to corporate unity, invariably shaped on the mind and pattern
of Christ himself (Phil 2:5; 1 Cor 2:16). In Romans 12, not only
does Paul exhort his hearers to offer themselves in terms of a singu-
lar sacrifice (θυσίαν ζῶσαν), but the remaining exhortations in this
chapter pertain to the function of “one body [with] many members”
and how their various gifts are worked out in their communities with
regard for the other person (Rom 12:3–­21).
Finally, attention deserves to be paid to Paul’s illuminating claim
that the believer “joined to the Lord is one spirit with him” (ὁ δὲ
κολλώμενος τῷ κυρίῳ ἓν πνεῦμά ἐστιν) (1 Cor 6:17). This language
of jointure already echoes Paul’s reminder that their “bodies are
members of Christ” (τὰ σώματα ὑμῶν μέλη Χριστοῦ ἐστιν) (1 Cor
6:15). Both in form and syntax, this idea is starkly juxtaposed in verses

82
Wright is among those who push for the both/and reading of this image
so that temple refers to individuals as much as the community. E.g., Wright,
PFG, 712–­13 (“What is true of the church as a whole is true of every single
Christian. To sin against the body is to deface the divine Temple, to ignore
the Shekinah who, in shocking fulfilment of ancient promises, has returned
to dwell in that Temple at last”); also Gupta, “Which ‘Body’ Is a Temple?”
529–­36. There is a sense that this is correct. So great is his concern for one
brother that to harm his conscience would “sin against Christ” (1 Cor 8:12).
Paul elsewhere demonstrates concern for “each one among you” in his fatherly
ministry to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 2:11). But none of this depends on
the individual being regarded as a temple and each one being regarded as a
locus of God’s Shekinah.
83
Gupta, “Which ‘Body’ Is a Temple?” 530.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 113

16–­17 with the analogy to marital union and its improper application
to prostitution and (or) sexual immorality (ἡ πόρνη).84

ὁ κολλώημενος τῇ πόρνῃ ἕν σῶμά ἐστιν

ἔσονωται γάρ, φησίν, οἱ δύο εἰς σάρκα μίαν
ὁ δὲ κολλώμενος τῷ κυρίω ἕν πνεῦμά ἐστιν.

The interplay with Genesis 2:24 and joining Christ with a prostitute
has sparked a wide array of interpretive options.85 Gunkel believed
sexual union to be in Paul’s mind, so that Christians are “absorbed”
into Christ and grow together into “one Spirit.”86 The use of the
term “member” in this context (and with its use in 1 Cor 12 in
connection with the “less honorable” members) has led some inter-
preters to point to a “serious and unavoidable double entendre” of
male genitalia.87 Martin interprets the use of “prostitute” against an
apocalyptic, cosmological frame. Seen this way, ἡ πόρνη refers to a
representative of the cosmos that is estranged and opposed to God.
Accordingly, sexual immorality with a prostitute is not a personal act
alone with personal consequences. For Martin, “the man who has sex
with a prostitute is, in Paul’s construction, Christ’s ‘member’ entering

84
On the issue of temple prostitution as factoring in the background of these
issues, see Brian S. Rosner, “Temple Prostitution in 1 Corinthians 6:12–­20,” NovT
40, no. 4 (1998): 336–­51; Liu, Temple Purity in 1–­2 Corinthians, 150; and also
Tanja Susanne Scheer, “Tempelprostitution in Korinth?” in Tempelprostitution
im Altertum: Fakten und Fiktionen, ed. Tanja Susanne Scheer and Martin Lind-
ner (Berlin: Verlag Antike, 2009), 221–­66.
85
On the interpretive options, see, e.g., Andrew David Naselli, “Is Every Sin
outside the Body except Immoral Sex? Weighing whether 1 Corinthians 6:18b Is
Paul’s Statement or a Corinthian Slogan,” JBL 136, no. 4 (2017): 969–­87. Rep-
resentative of the view that Paul has in mind a marital union between Christ and
Christians, see Kathy L. Gaca, The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political
Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2003), 171–­83. Cf. Bruce N. Fisk, “ΠOPNEYEΙΝ as Body Violation: The
Unique Nature of Sexual Sin in 1 Corinthians 6.18,” NTS 42, no. 4 (1996): 540–­58.
86
Hermann Gunkel, The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View of the
Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul; A Biblical-­Theological Study
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 114.
87
So Levison, Filled, 298; and Martin, Body, 175–­79.
 114 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

the body of the prostitute.”88 The pneuma, for Martin, is that which
is shared between the man and Christ, so that by pneuma, “the man’s
body is therefore the appendage of Christ’s body.”89
The problem with this interpretation is that Martin avoids the
very thing Paul places front and center in this discussion: the temple.
Purity is evidently the issue on the table, but it is not of the kind best
informed by medical texts and classical views on pollution. Rather,
this text is better informed with backgrounds associated with ancient
temple purity and the long scriptural tradition that informs sexual
chastity (beginning with the Gen 2 account of Adam and Eve). As we
will show shortly, these are not unrelated subjects. The problems aris-
ing from sexual immorality, idolatry, and meals, together with issues
surrounding God’s call to holiness and the observance of sacred space
are issues that arise together throughout Paul’s letters, not simply in
1 Corinthians.90 It is possible that this cluster of ideas (and precisely
these) had more to do with the practical observance of the Apostolic
Decree in gentile assemblies than much of Pauline scholarship tends
to recognize.91
Rather than a pneuma that joins humans and Christ together
into one large cosmic entity, Paul deploys pneuma to locate the
Corinthian identity within a Christ-­oriented sacred space that is
now no longer bound to a single place. The relativization of space is
not merely geographical in scope, but bears a heavenly component.
This is confirmed by the reference to resurrection in this passage:
“God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power” (6:14).
Rather than some credal aside or post-­Pauline gloss,92 the appeal to

88
Martin, Body, 176.
89
Martin, Body, 176.
90
E.g., 1 Thess 1:9; 4:3–­8; 1 Cor 6–­8; 10:14–­19.
91
See § 5.1.3. J. C. Hurd’s study is among the more notable reconstruc-
tions of the Corinthian correspondence that assumes that the Decree precedes
and contextualizes the issues addressed in the text. John Coolidge Hurd, The
Origin of I Corinthians, 2nd ed. (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1983). I do
not accept Hurd’s larger thesis that the Decree itself necessitated a modification
of his views addressed in earlier correspondence (some of which he contends is
contained in 1 Corinthians itself).
92
Pace Udo Schnelle, “1 Kor 6:14—­Eine Nachpaulinische Glosse,” NovT
25, no. 3 (1983): 217–­19.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 115

believers being raised forms a vital link to Paul’s overall image of the
assembly as temple. The sense of “resurrection” in this passage is
not simply a vague reference to the future,93 but rather has immedi-
ate and present force for believers who are united to Christ in one
Spirit (v. 17).94 As we saw in 2 Corinthians 5, there is a temporal
tension in their union to Christ. They are united with the Lord in
the present time by the pneuma, but this hope is anchored by the
future expectation of a fuller presence with him upon the resurrec-
tion of God’s people.
The overall picture traced in 1 Corinthians is now rounding into
form. Believers enjoy a union with the Lord by the Spirit, framed
in terms of a future resurrection that they look to (6:14). In this
arrangement, their “bodies are members of Christ” (6:15). Joined
to the Lord in “one Spirit,” they are to “shun fornication” in view
of the fact that the “body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” (6:18–­19).
This redescribes the kind of themes established in 2 Corinthians 4–­5:
a union with Christ expressed in terms of a temple dwelling context
which is grounded in the hope of resurrection where believers will be
with the Lord. These ideas reach their fuller expression in 1 Corin-
thians 12, where the language of spirit, members, and body converge
in terms of members being joined to one body through baptism “in
one spirit.”

4.3.3. The Body and the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12

There is a resumption of key words in 1 Corinthians 12 that were
emphasized in chapters 3 and 6: namely, “body,” “pneuma,” and
“members of Christ.” While we lack a corresponding reference in this
chapter to the “temple,” the recurrence of this association of images
necessarily invites the reader to build on these existing grounds. In
fact, there are only four identity statements in the entire letter where

93
The text-­critical evidence shows disagreement over the tense (whether
present, aorist, or future). The correctors to 𝔓46 indicate all three tenses. The
majority of commentators I have reviewed support the future tense (supported
by ℵ C D3). E.g., Thiselton, Corinthians, 464; Conzelmann, Corinthians, 111.
94
See also Hooker, “Sanctuary,” 349 (“Christians are already members of
Christ’s risen body: it is precisely because they are raised with Christ that believ-
ers are limbs and organs of his body.”).
 116 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Paul combines a “you are” (ἐστε / ἐστιν) clause with a predicate

nominative identity.95

You are God’s temple. (1 Cor 3:16)

Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you.

(1 Cor 6:19)

You are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. (1 Cor 9:2)

You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.
(1 Cor 12:27)

The outlier here is 9:2, where Paul discusses the churches at Corinth
in terms of the efficacy of his ministry, images that he employs in his
other letters.96 The remaining three, however, are capstone statements
each summarizing key instructions and appear to follow a common
thread throughout the epistle: they are the body of Christ, who is the
heavenly temple in his person, and they are joined to him as members
of one body by means of the Spirit.
Morna Hooker’s recent study on Paul’s temple and body language
similarly traces through this same cluster of statements with the aims
of drawing out their potential relationship.97 She observes that chap-
ters 3, 6, and 12 develop related and overlapping concepts in terms
of the body of Christ, members of Christ, and the temple of the
Holy Spirit (although not all three chapters discuss all three subjects
at the same time). All three passages share a focus on the work of
the Spirit, but chapters 3 and 6 focus on the holiness of the temple,
chapters 3 and 12 concern unity, and, importantly, chapters 6 and
12 develop the idea of the body of Christ and believers as members
therein. Hooker, surveying these statements, ponders whether a pat-
tern can emerge between these points: “The question that intrigues
me is this: are the images of the ναὸς Θεοῦ or ναὸς ἁγίου πνεύματός

95
1 Cor 14:12 is the only other potential candidate that fits this criterion,
though this predicates not an identity, but a state of being: ζηλωταί ἐστε (You are
zealous for spiritual gifts).
96
E.g., 2 Cor 3:1 (“you are our letter”); 1 Thess 2:19–­20 (naming the Thes-
salonians as a crown of boasting and joy).
97
Hooker, “Sanctuary,” 353.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 117

and of the σῶμα Χριστοῦ simply parallel images that just happen to
overlap in 1 Cor. 6, or is there an underlying relationship between
them?”98 What we do not have in 1 Corinthians is the kind of direct
statement we find in John 2:21: Jesus was not referring to the Jerusa-
lem temple, but to “the temple of his body.” But as we have already
sought to demonstrate, those conceptual links may be present with-
out the express formulation expressed in so many words. When Paul
at last declares to his Corinthian hearers, “you are the body of Christ
and members of it” (1 Cor 12:27), it bears a summative quality that
requires mutual interpretation from prior passages on members, body,
and spirit.

4.3.3.1. The Divine Identity of “One Spirit”

Turning to the text of 1 Corinthians 12 specifically, we find an
extended meditation on pneuma in terms of oneness and diversity.
Nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the form and repetition
of diairesis (diversity or variety) and the word autos (same) listed in
verses 4–­6, which can be arranged as follows:

Διαιρέσεις δὲ χαρισμάτων εἰσίν, τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ πνεῦμα·

καὶ διαιρέσεις διακονιῶν εἰσιν, καὶ ὁ αὐτὸς κύριος·
καὶ διαιρέσεις ἐνεργημάτων εἰσίν, ὁ δὲ αὐτὸς θεὸς
ὁ ἐνεργῶν
τὰ πάντα ἐν
πᾶσιν.

The parallelism strikingly illustrates a variety of activities among

church members (gifts, services, activities [χαρισμάτων, διακονιῶν,
ἐνεργημάτων]), but it lays the accent on the sameness of source. Of
course, that which is labeled as autos is not the same subject in the
three phrases, but rather refers to three distinct referents: pneuma,
Kyrios, and Theos. Whether or not this is any sort of proof for a trin-
itarian framework in Pauline thought (incipient, inchoate, or oth-
erwise) is less important to this thesis than the fact that pneuma is
placed directly with Kyrios and Theos as the same enabling source

98
Hooker, “Sanctuary,” 353.
 118 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

for the diversity of gifts to the church members.99 The pneuma is

squarely identified with the Lord and God who works all things in
all persons.100
Connecting this with our leading theme of “one Spirit,” this pas-
sage informs how the Corinthians are to understand and recognize
the Spirit. “One and the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:11) works in con-
junction with the “same Lord” and “the same God.” In Paul’s letters,
there is not a generalized spirit world filled with spirit beings that
move about for good or for evil,101 there is rather “one Spirit” that is
identified with the “one God, the Father from whom are all things”
and “one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things” (1 Cor
8:6). Paul presumes that the Spirit is identifiable and distinguishable
from other Spirits (1 Cor 12:10; 2 Cor 11:4), a Spirit that is from
God and not from the world (1 Cor 2:12). Importantly, Paul explains
that in contrast to a former life marked by ungodliness, they are now
washed, sanctified, and justified “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor 6:11). Here we find clear asso-
ciation between the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit as

99
On the trinitarian reading for this verse, see, e.g., Wright, PFG, 723. On
Paul and trinitarianism in recent discussion, see Wesley Hill, Paul and the Trin-
ity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline Letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015)
(although he curiously omits a discussion of 12:4–­6); also Max Turner, “‘Trin-
itarian’ Pneumatology in the New Testament?—­Towards an Explanation of the
Worship of Jesus,” AsTJ 58, no. 1 (2003): 167–­86.
100
On “identity” in this context, see Richard Bauckham, God Crucified:
Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1999), 5–­8 (“If we wish to know in what Second Temple Judaism considered
the uniqueness of the one God to consist, what distinguished God as unique
from all other reality, including beings worshipped as gods by Gentiles, we
must look not for a definition of divine nature, but for ways of characterizing
the unique divine identity”). Bauckham’s use of “identity” concepts has gen-
erated fruitful studies concerning Christological identity; e.g., Chris Tilling,
Paul’s Divine Christology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015); Christopher Baker,
“The Identity of the Spirit in Paul: Did the Spirit Come to Possess a Distinct
Identity within Paul’s Christian Monotheism?” (PhD diss., Australian Catholic
University, 2013).
101
Pace Guy Williams, The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle: A
Critical Examination of the Role of Spiritual Beings in the Authentic Pauline
Epistles (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 119

that which marks the inflection point of the believer’s new identity.102
This comports well with the baptism formulations that bear out the
same identity links with Christ and Spirit.103

4.3.4. Pneuma and Eucharist: “Drinking” the Spirit? (1 Cor 12:12–­13)

An important exegetical issue in this passage concerns how to inter-
pret being baptized and being given to drink or being watered ἐν ἑνὶ
πνεύματι (by/in one spirit).104 Käsemann and Horn ascribed the sac-
raments to form the means by which Christ transmitted his pneuma
to believers in the physical act of eating and drinking.105 The deci-
sions of whether Paul imagines reception of the Spirit by baptism or
by drinking the “spirit” depend on a related set of interpretive deci-
sions. The first of these is squaring away the logic of Paul’s preposi-
tional constructions. Does baptism in or with the pneuma refer to an
element or sphere of baptism, or does it otherwise concern an instru-
mental aspect of action by the pneuma? The argument for a non-­
agential interpretation is supported by the fact that Paul prefers the
εἰς and ἐν formulations with the baptism word group βαπτίζω, which
is typically used in connection with a person or name.106 Hence, Paul

102
On the “name” of God with respect to the Spirit, see C. Kavin Rowe,
“Romans 10:13: What Is the Name of the Lord?” Horizons in Biblical Theology
22, no. 2 (2000): 135–­73.
103
Cf. 1 Cor 12:13; 2 Cor 13:13.
104
Pauline and early Christian views on baptismal unity have been the subject
of full-­length studies, the details and history of which need to be more assumed
than developed here. See in particular Bruce Hansen, All of You Are One: The
Social Vision of Galatians 3.28, 1 Corinthians 12.13 and Colossians 3.11 (London:
T&T Clark, 2010); cf. also Michael Root and Risto Saarinen, eds., Baptism and
the Unity of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
105
Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes: Studien zur paulinischen
Pneumatologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992), 57 (“Die Über-
tragung des Geistes bedarf verschiedener Hilfsstoffe, an die sich das πνεῦμα stof-
flich bindet [Wasser, Öl, Speisen etc.]”); Ernst Käsemann, “The Pauline Doctrine
of the Lord’s Supper,” in Essays on New Testament Themes, trans. W. J. Montague
(London: SCM Press, 1964), 115–­17. Cf. Jos. Asen. 8.5, 9; 21.13–­14; 1QHa
11.3–­14; 12.11–­13; 15.6–­7; 20.11–­13; Sir 39.6; Seneca, Ep. 66.12.
106
The New Testament uses ἐν 2,825 times compared to εἰς 1,866. Cf.
Matthew Brook O’Donnell, “Two Opposing Views on Baptism with/by the
Holy Spirit and of 1 Corinthians 12.13: Can Grammatical Investigation Bring
 120 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

speaks of baptizing believers “in the name of Paul” (ἐβαπτίσθητε εἰς

τὸ ὄνομα Παύλου) (1 Cor 1:13) or Israelites being baptized “into
Moses” (ἐβαπτίσθησαν εἰς τὸν Μωϋσῆν) (1 Cor 10:2). The other
New Testament formula denoting the agency of the baptizer, ὑπο
+ genitive (baptized by someone), is not present in Paul.107 When
paired with pneuma, we find that the baptizand is baptized “in one
spirit” and “into one body” (ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι ἡμεῖς πάντες εἰς ἓν
σῶμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν) (1 Cor 12:13).
One way we can apply grist on these slippery grammatical
issues is to understand the function of these prepositions else-
where in the letter. The most relevant evidence in sorting through
the options comes from 1 Corinthians 10, which bears important
relationships to 1 Corinthians 12.108 We can represent the parallel
clauses as follows:
10:2b καὶ πάντες εἰς τὸν Μωϋσῆν ἐβαπτίσθησαν
ἐν τῇ νεφέλῃ καὶ
ἐν τῇ θαλάσσῃ
12:13a–­b ἐν ἑνὶ πνεύματι
ἡμεῖς πάντες εἰς ἓν σῶμα ἐβαπτίσθημεν
10:3–­4 καὶ πάντες
τὸ αὐτὸ πνευματικὸν βρῶμα ἔφαγον
καὶ πάντες
τὸ αὐτὸ πνευματικὸν ἔπιον πόμα
12:13d καὶ πάντες
ἓν πνεῦμα ἐποτίσθημεν

The phrasing is not exactly parallel, but its principal value is in helping
us sort through the logical structuring of the prepositional phrases

Clarity?” in Baptism, the New Testament and the Church, ed. Stanley E. Porter
and Anthony R. Cross (Sheffield: T&T Clark, 1999), 327. Others have sug-
gested a historically progressive relationship that retained distinct differences
in meaning. So Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed.
(Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 151–­52 (“Historical and contextual
evidence indicates that they overlap in meaning, while remaining distinct”).
107
Cf. Mark 1:5; 9 (ἐβαπτίσθη εἰς τὸν Ἰορδάνην ὑπὸ Ἰωάννου); Matt 3:6.
108
Among those favoring the mutual interpretation of 1 Cor 10:1–­4 and
12:12–­13, see Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes, 167–­75; Käsemann, “Pauline Doc-
trine of the Lord’s Supper.”
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 121

in both passages, as they both share the overlapping context of bap-

tism language. Importantly, the εἰς clause in 12:13 denotes a person
that the baptizand is somehow identified with or “baptized into.”
Although the “body” is not named in chapter 12, the reference here
is most certainly Christ (as 12:12 makes explicit).109 In 10:2, Moses
is portrayed as a representative figure into whom the people are bap-
tized with respect to; drawing out the comparison, believers are bap-
tized into Christ’s body in the same way. The pneuma in this regard
can be seen to correspond with the cloud and the sea of chapter
10, each of which is a potentially physical and visible sign of God’s
presence and leading activity—­signs that track well the ministries of
the Spirit as that which attests to a believer’s identity in Christ (Rom
8:16) and that which leads the believer out of slavery and fear and
into freedom (Rom 8:14–­17; Gal 5:13–­26).110
Equally difficult in 12:13c is the clause πάντες ἓν πνεῦμα
ἐποτίσθημεν (“being watered” or “given to drink of one spirit”).111
This verb is rendered in most of the major English translations as
the passive form of “to drink,” as in we were all given to drink of one
spirit. Understood this way, the rendering undergirds a sacramen-
tal understanding to the verse—­having already discussed baptism,
the passage is then understood to make a eucharistic turn. James
Dunn, averse to such a sacramental reading of 12:13c, glosses this
verb merely as “we were watered” in one spirit. The verb ποτίζω
is indeed capable of denoting both drinking and irrigation.112 In
support of Dunn’s view is the fact that the other occurrences of
ποτίζω in 1 Corinthians bears this agricultural sense of watering, as
in “I planted, Apollos watered” (ἐγὼ ἐφύτευσα, Ἀπολλῶς ἐπότισεν)

109
See also 12:27 (“you are the body of Christ”).
110
On the Exodus-­themed overtones to Paul’s Spirit images in Romans, see
Susan Grove Eastman, “Whose Apocalypse? The Identity of the Sons of God in
Romans 8:19,” JBL 121, no. 2 (2002): 263–­77; Sylvia C. Keesmaat, Paul and
His Story (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).
111
Cf. G. J. Cuming, “ΕΠΟΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝ (1 Corinthians 12.13),” NTS 27
(1981): 283–­85, and E. R. Rogers, “ΕΠΟΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝ Again,” NTS 29, no. 1
(1983): 139–­42; also Anthony R. Cross, “Spirit-­and Water-­Baptism in 1 Cor-
inthians 12.13,” in Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies, ed.
Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (London: Bloomsbury, 2003), 120–­48.
112
BDAG, s.v. ποτίζω; Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 131; also Conzel-
mann, Corinthians, 212.
 122 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

(1 Cor 3:6; cf. 3:8). Furthermore, the verb “to drink” (πίνω and
its infinitive, πεῖν) is used quite naturally elsewhere in 1 Corin-
thians when it comes to the human act of drinking rather than
ἐποτίσθημεν or its cognates (10:4; 10:21). Dunn contends that the
sacraments are simply not in view because not only would it suggest
the unprecedented image of receiving the pneuma by ingestion, but
furthermore the imagery falls much more in line with the prophetic
expectation that the pneuma in the last days will be “poured out”
and water the dryness of the land and God’s people (e.g., Isa 32:15;
44:3; Ezek 39:29; Joel 2:28).113
Dunn’s remarks notwithstanding, the eucharistic reading receives
more convincing support from several key exegetical factors. First,
while πίνω and πεῖν indeed are natural options to signify the act of
drinking in 1 Corinthians, it is not necessarily the language of rit-
ual. The passive sense in 12:13 is necessary in order to coordinate
with ἐβαπτίσθημεν (we were baptized) occurring in the same sen-
tence; additionally, a passive signifier fits in a sacramental context
where the importance is not the subject’s action itself (i.e., drinking),
but on that which is received by the subject as though given by gift
(i.e., the cup of blessing).114 Second, Dunn overstates the grammat-
ical links with the prophetic references to the “pouring out” of the
pneuma. These references consistently use the Hebrew form of ‫ׁשׁפך‬
and the Greek ἐκχέω. Isaiah 29:10 is the one instance in LXX Greek
where ποτίζειν (in the active voice) is used with reference to πνεῦμα
(where God “pours out a spirit of stupor” [ὅτι πεπότικεν ὑμᾶς κύριος
πνεύματι κατανύξεως]). Any conceptual links then to ἐποτίσθημεν
(in the sense of irrigational watering, in the passive voice) with Paul’s
use of πνεῦμα is highly attenuated. Most importantly, the strong par-
allels with 1 Corinthians 10 noted above constrain how the refer-
ence to πάντες ἓν πνεῦμα ἐποτίσθημεν (12:13c) is understood. The
subject matter of 10:1–21 is certainly cast to evoke a sacramental
analogy, as it reads that “they all drank the same spiritual bread and
drank the same spiritual drink” (πάντες τὸ αὐτὸ πνευματικὸν ἔπιον

113
Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 131.
114
But see 1 Cor 11:25–­26 (“Do this as often as you drink it [ὁσάκις ἐὰν
πίνητε], in remembrance of me”).
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 123

πόμα) (10:3–4).115 Paul later refers to the “cup of blessing that we

bless” (10:16). The continual references to the cup that is taken at
the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:25–29 provide further grounding
for the discussion of 12:13 to be understood against this sacramental
backdrop.116
We can, thus, provide an answer to our lead question: Did the
Corinthians drink the Spirit? No, not in a material sense where the
physical pneuma is ingested by drink. The drink (12:13) is “the cup
of blessing” of the Lord’s Supper, which they are to recognize as
a koinonia in the blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16). The language of
“spirit” here links the “spiritual drink” of Israel (1 Cor 10:1–­4) and
that which the Corinthians are given to drink: one Spirit (12:13). In
both instances what is received as drink, however, is not the Spirit
itself, but a ritual form of participation in Christ. As we concluded in
our discussion of koinonia language,117 the better understanding of
“fellowship” and “participation” language surrounds the act of par-
ticipating in cultic ritual. The Corinthians did not receive the Spirit

115
1 Corinthians 10 and 12 are not only mutually interpretive, but the “exam-
ple” of Israel accounted here can only work if their experience is not “similar” to
the Corinthians, but the same—­they are liable to judgment despite receiving the
bread and the cup. Indeed like “some of the Israelites,” some of the Corinthians
also died in their unworthy reception of the elements.
116
James Dunn and Gordon Fee lead a group of scholars who deny any vital
link between pneuma reception and the sacraments (baptism in particular) in the
Pauline material. So Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 109–­46, esp. 130; Gordon
D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 178–­83. Their principal argument is that Paul
deploys pneuma in a metaphorical sense of joining the believer “in Christ.” See
James D. G. Dunn, “‘Baptized’ as Metaphor,” in Baptism, the New Testament and
the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R. E. O. White,
ed. Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross (Sheffield: Sheffield University Press,
1999), 307–­8. This argument fails to persuade as Paul’s ritual and cultic language
is never nakedly a physical act, but necessarily invokes a symbolic system that
blends both embodied ritual action with the theological ideas they are joined
with. On the complex of symbolic ritual in the New Testament, embodied com-
munal practice, and its role in spiritual formation, see Catherine Bell, Ritual The-
ory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009); and Richard E.
DeMaris, The New Testament in Its Ritual World (New York: Routledge, 2008).
117
§ 4.1.3.
 124 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

by drinking the cup, just as the Israelites are not described as receiv-
ing the Spirit in their “spiritual drink.” The source of water for Israel
was the rock, “and that rock was Christ” (1 Cor 10:4). What makes
the drink “spiritual,” is not that it contains “spirit,”118 but that in
both instances they bear a connective dimension to Christ in a cultic
context. What both Israel and the Corinthians receive is a koinonia in
Christ by means of the Spirit.

4.3.5. Connecting Together Spirit, Temple, Body, and Christ

Having surveyed the critical links of the thesis to this point, we can
now address the question as to why Paul appears to elide his “temple”
locution to connect principally with the Holy Spirit and not specifi-
cally Christ: “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that
God’s Spirit dwells in you?” (1 Cor 3:16). If Paul has a wider com-
plex of interrelated images in mind that proceeds primarily through
Christ, as I have argued, why is this not formulated in so many words
in 1 Corinthians? First, this chapter has sought to demonstrate that
presence with Christ and the Spirit’s dwelling with his people are two
expressions of the same reality. Being baptized “in one Spirit” (1 Cor
12:13) is the same reality for Paul as being baptized into Christ and
clothed with Christ (Gal 3:27). The spiritual presence of Christ is a
temporal bridge to an expected fullness of Christ’s physical reunion
with his people. This is precisely the point Paul makes in 2 Corinthi-
ans 5:5–­8: having the down payment of the pneuma guarantees that
they will be “at home with the Lord,” in a heavenly temple not made
with hands.119 Because Paul must account for the reality of Christ’s
physical absence, the Spirit is relied upon to communicate koinonia
between the churches and the risen Christ.

118
So, rightly, Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transforma-
tion and Empowering for Religious-­Ethical Life, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2013), 117 (arguing that the -­ικός suffix does not refer to the material or the
substance of which something is composed, such that “spiritual bread” does not
indicate bread composed of or infused with “spirit”); also N. T. Wright, The
Resurrection of the Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 351–­52 (observing
from 1 Cor 2 and Rom 7:4 that the -­ικός suffix more naturally bears ethical or
functional meaning rather than the substance of which a thing is composed [for
which -­ινός is more characteristic]).
119
See § 4.2.1.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 125

The second reason for Paul’s somewhat unusual presentation of

his spirit-­temple image pertains to the odd structural features peculiar
to 1 Corinthians. Commentators on this epistle have long observed
the structural feature of alternating patterns (e.g., an ABA′ structure)
in 1 Corinthians where topical discussions are suspended with inter-
vening material and resumed at a later section.120 A notable example
is how Paul frames the discussion of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12
and 14 to surround the centering encomium to love. We have already
found that Paul’s discussion of “spiritual bread and spiritual drink”
bears mutually interpretive textual points in 1 Corinthians 10 and 12
that encourage being read together.121 Without leaning too heavily
on structural arguments, the point is raised here to demonstrate that
Paul can gradually draw out elements of a particular theme in 1 Cor-
inthians, developing his arguments in sections that recur throughout
the letter. Accordingly, what we might find in a compressed frame in
2 Corinthians 4–­5, we find in a wider spread throughout 1 Corinthi-
ans (chapters 3, 6, 10, and 12).
Finally, the emphasis on the Spirit with respect to the temple
image comports well with the broader teaching aims of 1 Corinthians
concerning the Spirit. If we accept some version of the Pneumatist
hypothesis122 as contributing to an imbalanced view of the pneuma
in Corinth (i.e., some within the community who refer to them-

120
For a discussion of this feature in 1 Corinthians, see, e.g., Andrew David
Naselli, “The Structure and Theological Message of 1 Corinthians,” Presbyte-
rion 44, no. 1 (2018): 98–­114; Matthew R. Malcolm, Paul and the Rhetoric
of Reversal in 1 Corinthians: The Impact of Paul’s Gospel on His Macro-­Rhetoric
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) (discussing ABA′ as a rhetor-
ical form of oral patterning which structures the letter on a more macro level).
See, e.g., the flanked discussion of weak and strong in 1 Cor 8:7–­13 with 1 Cor
10:23–­30, which surrounds a centering discussion on the related but different
subject matter of Paul’s own example of self-­giving.
121
See § 4.3.3–­4.
122
See, e.g., Horn, Das Angeld des Geistes, 182 (“Der polemische Grundton
dieser Schulssmahnung lässt die Annahme einer speziellen innergemeindlichen
Gruppe, die sich selbst πνευματικοί nennt, wahrscheinlich sein”); on the debates
over whether Paul discusses only “spiritual gifts” or an identifiable group named
“the spiritual ones,” see, e.g., John David K. Ekem, “‘Spiritual Gifts’ or ‘Spiritual
Persons’? 1 Corinthians 12:1a Revisited,” Neotestamentica 38, no. 1 (2004): 54–­74.
Our argument does not depend on the precise identification of the self-­proclaimed
 126 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

selves as “spiritual” and “zealous for spiritual gifts” [14:12, 37]),

we can more clearly hear Paul’s teaching of the pneuma as shifting
importance away from individual claims of charismatic advancement
and toward the shared, distributed aspect of the gift of the Spirit.
In whichever way we describe the precise intergroup divisions with
respect to “the spiritual ones” (τῶν πνευματκῶν), it remains certain
that Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 12–­14 diminishes the impor-
tance of spiritual gifts compared to the greater value in seeking to
“build up the church” (14:12). Indeed, “if I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge . . . but do not have
love, I am nothing” (13:2). In this light, Paul’s direct connection
with the Holy Spirit as denoting the community’s identity as God’s
temple finds meaningful resonance. The concept of a spiritual temple
comports well with the “building up” language that densely covers
1 Corinthians 12–­14. Furthermore, the idea that “one and the same
Spirit” gives gifts to the many members of the body also supports the
overarching aim that the “things of the spirit” are not to be claimed
as a marker of individual superiority or advancement, but rather in
terms of the shared identity that they receive from God as the “tem-
ple of the Holy Spirit.” The Spirit in their midst is not the means for
one group of Corinthians to surpass others, but the sign that they are
together God’s temple.

4.3.6. The Relational-­Spatial Ethos “in Christ” and Multicultural Unity

The shape of Paul’s cultic horizon that he draws out in the Corin-
thian letters is relational-­spatial. It is relational in that it principally con-
cerns the formation of loving relationships within the community with
respect to Christ (1 Cor 13). Paul enjoins them to “let all that you do
be done in love” (16:14). Whereas a superior “knowledge puffs up”
some members over the other, “love builds up” (8:1). It is spatial (or
structural) in that Paul repeatedly casts the pattern of relationships in
terms of sacred space and the duties that obtain from that symbolic
complex. Taken together, the Corinthian calling is a “call to fellowship
in the Son” (1:9). The temple overtones are confirmed by a repeated

“spiritual ones” in Corinth. It only requires that Paul is correcting an imbalance to

the importance of “spiritual gifts” as a means of advancement over others.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 127

appeal to the group as “God’s temple” and “God’s building” in which

they are to be built on the foundation of Christ by wise leaders (3:10),
and mutually “built up” with the spiritual gifts (14:26).123
Importantly, this cultic call is invested with an emphasis on “the
nations” who call upon the name of the Lord. The watchword in
this communal ethos is to “give no offense to the Jews, Greeks, and
the ekklesia of God” (10:32). For this reason, the appeal to “tem-
ple” cannot be a generic appeal to sacred space and temples, which
would have been an aspect of daily life in Roman Corinth.124 By appeal
to “God’s temple,” Paul invites comparison with the scriptural por-
traits of sacred space as well as the Jerusalem temple itself. This is
confirmed among other evidence by Paul’s identification of Christ as
“paschal lamb” (5:7), by his appeal to the unleavened bread of the
Passover feast (5:8, cf. Exod 12:15–­20), and by his identification of
the Corinthians with Israel in terms of “our fathers” (10:1). Framed
by the statements in chapters 3 and 6 that the Corinthians are identi-
fied as “temple,” the intervening discourse on purity, immorality, and
idolatry fall fittingly within this cultic environment (1 Cor 5:3–­6:20).
This is given formal prominence in Paul’s rearticulation of the Jewish
Shema of one God and Lord Jesus Christ.125
The imagined cultic space is also richly informed by the Hebrew
Bible. Paul invites his readers to reflect on Scripture’s instructions
concerning sacred space to help fill out the relational-­structural space
he articulates. Because they are God’s temple, they must root out the
evil within them in accordance with its scriptural norms (1 Cor 5:1–­8;

123
Paul develops the theme of “spiritual gifts” in chapter 12 in order to reinforce
a pattern of “building” in 1 Corinthians 14 (vv. 3–­5, 12, 17, 26). We have already
seen references to the church as “God’s building” (1 Cor 3:9) and to the leaders con-
sidering themselves builders who “build” (οἰκοδομέω) on the foundation of Christ
(3:16–­17). See also 1 Cor 8:1; 10:23; 14:3–­26; On the significance of this imagery
with respect to the temple, see Ciampa and Rosner, Corinthians, 376.
124
Pace John R. Lanci, A New Temple for Corinth: Rhetorical and Archaeolog-
ical Approaches to Pauline Imagery (New York: Peter Lang, 1997).
125
On the significance of the expansion of Shema, among the many studies to
reference, see recently Andrew Byers, “The One Body of the Shema in 1 Corin-
thians: An Ecclesiology of Christological Monotheism,” NTS 62, no. 4 (2016):
517–­32.
 128 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

cf. Deut 23:2–­9).126 This invites his hearers to allow their own read-
ings of the associated imagery of sacred space in Scripture to inform
aspects of this new relational space they inhabit.127 Paul draws on the
wilderness account of Israel, complete with its covenantal injunctions
not to provoke God’s jealousy, to inform their own obligations to
God within the community (1 Cor 10:22). Paul draws out a fuller
explication of the Shema for the Corinthians: One God, the Father
from whom are all things, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom
are all things (1 Cor 8:6).128 These images further warn the Corin-
thians to maintain the temple presence with grave seriousness, for as
it was with Israel, so it remains with the churches: God’s presence is
invariably a dangerous one.129 Improperly observing the ritual ele-
ments risks severe penalties, even death (1 Cor 11:30).

126
The command to “drive out the evil one from among you” is a Deuter-
onomic injunction: Deut 17:7; 19:19; 21:21. In 2 Cor 13:1, Paul invokes the
Deuteronomic “law of witnesses” (Deut 19:15) for the judgment of immoral
conduct on the account of “two or three witnesses.” For the Old Testament and
Deuteronomic background for this passage, see Ciampa and Rosner, Corinthi-
ans, 204–­19; Newton, Concept of Purity, 86–­97. Also Lincicum, Paul and the
Early Jewish Encounter (particularly 119–­66); and Grant Macaskill, “The Lord’s
Supper and Someone Else’s Memory: Do This in Remembrance of Me,” in his
Living in Union with Christ: Paul’s Gospel and Christian Moral Identity (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019), 97–­114.
127
Auerbach wrote of the Pentateuch’s distinct ability to create not only a
world that readers can imagine, but a world that readers are compelled to see as
their world, and therefore compelled to inhabit. See Erich Auerbach, Mimesis:
The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1968), 15 (observing that the Elohist’s representation of reality was
such that it intended to “overcome our reality: we are to fit our own life into its
world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of universal history”).
128
Lincicum, Paul and the Early Jewish Encounter, 139 (“Paul does not pres-
ent this as a correction or an addition to the Shema, but as an interpretation of it
that discloses its true referent”).
129
See Macaskill, Union with Christ, 127 (discussing the imagery of glory in
covenant contexts as a mobile and dangerous presence and its framing principles
for New Testament accounts of new covenant and participation). See also, more
recently, Michael K. W. Suh, Power and Peril: Paul’s Use of Temple Discourse in
1 Corinthians (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020). It deserves mention at this point that
the Deuteronomic appeal to “drive the evil from your midst” that Paul invokes
in 1 Cor 5:1 is invariably a reference to death. Cf. Deut 17:7; 19:19; 21:21.
Christ, the Spirit, and God’s Temple 129

4.4. Conclusions
This chapter has followed through the Corinthian letters to demon-
strate two of the three movements of our thesis. The first is that the
new, heavenly temple for Paul is not a physical building, but rather
Christ himself—a temple not made with hands. The second is that
Paul regards the Spirit as actualizing Christ’s presence with his people
in the time of his physical absence away from them. These are two
sides of the same reality for Paul. As we saw in 2 Corinthians 5, the
Spirit is regarded as the “down payment,” the completion of which
is not perfected with more of the Spirit, but rather with the return of
Christ himself with his people. Consequently, if by one Spirit, believ-
ers are joined to Christ as members of his body, and if the heavenly
temple is understood to be Christ himself bodily, then believers can
be rightly regarded as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), the temple
of God (1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:16), and the temple of the Holy Spirit
(1 Cor 6:19). For these reasons, in Paul’s understanding, the temple
is now described in terms of personal relationships that are “built up”
in Christ. In this heavenly temple, the people joined to Christ are also
described in terms of sacred architecture—its leaders and members as
pillars, stones, priests, and sacrificial offerings. These spatial dimen-
sions of the “temple of the Holy Spirit” and its implications for the
existing temple in Jerusalem will be the subject of further reflection
in the following chapter.
 5
One Spirit among Israel and
God’s Churches

YHWH is in his holy temple;

YHWH is enthroned in heaven.
Psalm 11:4

5.1. Movement Three: Jewish and Gentile Unity in One Spirit

The final movement of the thesis presents the argument that Paul’s
idea of “spiritual” unity did not seek to erase Jewish categories and
practices; nor is it fully accurate to hold that “spiritual fulfillment”
relativizes the differences of Jew and gentile in light of the new sit-
uation in Christ. Rather, Paul relied on the “Spirit” as the basis for
unity so that in Christ, gentiles can join together with the irrevoca-
ble call and promises made to Israel. For Paul, there is one and the
same Spirit for both Israel and for the nations. What is in view in this
chapter is the larger penumbra of ideas that can be gathered under
the characterization of supersessionism: the idea that the Christian
church (to varying degrees) has occupied the place of Israel as the
beneficiaries to God’s promises and blessings.1 Framed this way,
while all Christian readings of the Hebrew Scriptures must in some

1
See the helpful historical sketch by Terence L. Donaldson, “Supersession-
ism and Early Christian Self-­Definition,” JJMJS, no. 3 (2016): 1–­32. Also R.
Kendall Soulen, “Post-­Supersessionism,” in Dictionary of Jewish-­Christian Rela-
tions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); and Emmanuel Perrier,

131
 132 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

sense be regarded to involve some form of “supersessionism,” some

readings in this spectrum move toward a completeness of Christian
replacement of the Jewish people, the Hebrew Bible, and the Jerusa-
lem temple without remainder.2
We know from the second-century reception of the New Testa-
ment writings that the Pauline dichotomy of the “spirit” over against
the letter set in motion a new way of thinking through the nature
of spiritual fulfillment in Christ that grew increasingly unmoored
from their Jewish and scriptural antecedents.3 But this drift does not
appear present at the time of Paul’s own use and understanding of the
pneuma. Paul’s vision of unity was indeed “spiritually” inflected, but
that understanding of the Spirit was necessarily constrained by Israel’s
elect status and God’s irrevocable call of them as his people (Rom
11:29). In this remaining section, I hope to draw out how Paul uses
“spirit” discourse with respect to Israel and gentile churches in a way
that affirms Israel’s covenantal history, rather than simply replacing it
without remainder. First, this involves a discussion of Paul’s unitive
strategy in 1 Corinthians, with special attention to his characterization
of Israel and the strains in the communities that we can trace along
Jewish and gentile lines. Second, I hope to draw out some of the logic
of Jewish succession of sacred space, which will serve to improve our
categories beyond simply either status quo readings (where Israel has

“The Election of Israel Today: Supersessionism, Post-­Supersessionism, and Ful-

fillment,” trans. Matthew Levering, Nova et Vetera 7, no. 2 (2009): 485–­504.
2
On the recent discussion over supersessionism in biblical studies, see J.
Brian Tucker, Reading Romans after Supersessionism: The Continuation of Jewish
Covenantal Identity (New Testament after Supersessionism) (Eugene, Ore.: Cas-
cade, 2018) (and also accompanying entries in this collection); also § 6.2.2 and
the discussion of N. T. Wright and his particular view of total messianic fulfill-
ment of the covenants and the Jewish temple.
3
On the unique early Christian emphasis on “spiritual” (πνευματικός) dis-
course and its potential for expansion in later Christian traditions, see John M. G.
Barclay, “Πνευματικός in the Social Dialect of Pauline Christianity,” in The Holy
Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G. Dunn, ed. Gra-
ham N. Stanton, Stephen C. Barton, and Bruce W. Longenecker (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2004), 166–­67. As applied to the spiritual readings in the line of
Origen of Alexandria, see Henri de Lubac, History and Spirit: The Understand-
ing of Scripture according to Origen, trans. Anne Englund Nash (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2007).
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 133

a separate covenant administration from the church) or supersession-

ist readings (where Israel collapses into the fulfillments of Christ and
the church).

5.1.1. Constructing a “Thirdspace” for Jewish and Gentile Believers

Paul calls the Corinthian churches “God’s temple,” in relation with the
Holy Spirit that dwells among them. This imagery necessarily calls to
mind the physical temple in Jerusalem. Paul uses cultic imagery unique
to Israel,4 with reference to Israel’s God,5 and in the register of their
Scriptures,6 their covenants,7 and their “fathers” (1 Cor 10:1). But in
also referring to the Corinthian community as “the temple of the Holy
Spirit,” Paul’s statements tug on his hearers to imagine this space in
idealized terms beyond the Jerusalem temple. At the same time, Paul’s
appeal to the Spirit’s dwelling as demarcating God’s temple does not
evacuate the Jewish character of Paul’s new temple imaginary. Were it
truly Paul’s intention to transcend the temple and leave behind Jewish
aspects of sacred space in favor of Christian ones, it would be curious
for Paul to labor as he did to retain so many of the features of Israel’s
temple cult in his letters. It is important to bear in mind the well-­
known “temple warning inscription” restricting non-­Jews from enter-
ing Herod’s temple, which can be translated as follows: “No alien may
enter within the balustrade around the sanctuary and the enclosure.
Whosever is caught, on himself shall he put blame for the death which
will ensue.”8 Such exclusionary barriers provide strong evidence that
the Jewish temple itself was a symbol of division among Jews and gen-
tiles. For gentile believers and Godfearers, the Jewish temple hardly rec-
ommends itself as a symbol for the unity of Jews and gentiles together.
One helpful conceptual device that can aid our understanding of
Paul’s cultic complex emerges from the insights of “spatial theory,”9
particularly those ideas that elucidate modes of conceiving space amid
binary conflict and contested notions of identity and place. Edward

4
E.g., 1 Cor 5:6–­8, 13; 9:13–­14; 10:18, 23; 2 Cor 6:16.
5
E.g., 1 Cor 8:4–­6; 10:22.
6
E.g., 1 Cor 1:2; 2:9; 9:8–­10; 2 Cor 4:13–­14; 6:16–­18.
7
E.g., 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:3–­6.
8
CIJ 2.1400; OGIS II.598. See also Josephus, Ant. 15.11.5; JW 6.2.4.
9
The methodological justification for the use of spatial theory was discussed
in § 1.3.2.
 134 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Soja, an interdisciplinary social-­geographer and urban theorist, devel-

oped the critical theory of “Thirdspace” as a way of articulating social
space in ways that create room to resolve the impasses of either-­or
conflicts, bringing together groups or ideas that are usually deemed
mutually exclusive or uncombinable. Soja’s analysis, which develops
Lefebvre’s “trialectics of spatiality”10 into the arena of urban plan-
ning, human geography, and social justice, articulates a framework
for conceiving space that accounts for the simultaneously “real-­and-­
imagined” ways in which space is lived and shared.11 In this analysis
Firstspace perspective refers to the conception of space in terms of
the “real” material world, whereas a Secondspace perspective inter-
prets and maps that reality—­space as conceived and theorized. Third-
space forms a social perspective that is a “creative recombination and
extension . . . that builds” on both perspectives.
Soja’s own theoretical aims in particular address the “deep divi-
sions” that have arisen out of the postmodern critique of modernism
resulting in discourse that has viewed opposing sides as irrevocably
incompatible and uncombinable.12 Soja draws out this critical strat-
egy of Thirdspace, with which he attempts to “open up our spatial
imaginaries to ways of thinking and acting politically that respond to
all binarisms, to any attempt to confine thought and political action
to only two alternatives, by interjecting an-­Other set of choices.”13
In this mode of spatiality “the original binary choice is not dismissed
entirely but is subjected to a creative process of restructuring that

10
Edward W. Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-­and-­
Imagined Places (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996). As we discussed in § 1.3.2, Soja
relies principally on the philosophical theories of Henri Lefebvre’s “trialectics of
spatiality” as a means of reinterpreting space in terms of (1) the perceived space
of physical production and location, (2) the conceived space of how that space
is represented, planned, and/or theorized, and (3) the sociality of lived space,
which is able to encompass the first two but also forms an openness to “other”
understandings of space and social identity. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of
Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-­Smith (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell, 1992).
11
Soja, Thirdspace, 6.
12
Soja, Thirdspace, 3–­4.
13
Soja, Thirdspace, 5. His capitalization of “Other” matches Lefebvre’s cap-
stone insight: “Il y a toujours l’Autre.” E.g., Henri Lefebvre, La présence et l’ab-
sence: Contribution à la théorie des représentations (Paris: Casterman, 1980), 143.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 135

draws selectively and strategically from the two opposing categories

to open new alternatives.”14
While Soja’s theories pursue exchanges with a range of philosophi-
cal and interdisciplinary interlocutors and encompassing “a multiplic-
ity of perspectives” (thus overinclusive for our task),15 the concept of
Thirdspace, as a heuristic device, still provides us with helpful catego-
ries that assist in naming Paul’s own unitive strategy in his discourse
concerning the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” a union in which there
is no longer Jew or gentile. The value of the theory for this project is
in its capacity to explain how spatial reimagination can join together
divides that have been deemed irreconcilable—­something Paul can be
regarded as attempting in forming Jewish and gentile unity in Christ.
If the Firstspace perspective names the real, historical structure of the
Jerusalem temple and all that its history and cultic ritual entails, and
if the Secondspace perspective draws out the temple’s more idealized
and “spiritual” conception as a “temple of the Holy Spirit” in the
age of the Messiah, Thirdspace can create a mode of spatial discourse
that disrupts the categorical closures implicit in an either Jewish or
spiritually universal binary. Paul’s discourse can, in other words, be
described in a creative Thirdspace that draws together both Jewish
and gentile reference points but also appeals to a social space that
is at the same time neither. In this unitive dimension, “neither cir-
cumcision nor uncircumcision count for anything” (1 Cor 7:19; Gal
6:15); there is “neither Jew nor Greek” but they are one in Christ
(Gal 3:28). The “Other” alternative that presents itself is a space that
selectively draws from both categories, remaining open to both, but
also recombines both into a pattern of community that is more than
the sum of its parts. Given Paul’s proclivity to appeal to idealistic spa-
tial images with real-­world analogues, this set of spatial concepts can
improve our categories of Paul’s unitive strategy beyond what has in
the past been presented as binary outcomes of either supersessionism
or literal fulfillment. Paul creatively draws on the symbols of temple,

14
Soja, Thirdspace, 5.
15
On the limits and imprecision of Thirdspace, see the discussion of meth-
odology and critical spatiality in § 1.3.2; notably, also Christopher Meredith,
“Taking Issue with Thirdspace: Reading Soja, Lefebvre, and the Bible,” in Con-
structions of Space III: Biblical Spatiality and the Sacred, ed. Jorunn Økland, J.
Cornelis de Vos, and Karen J. Wenell (New York: T&T Clark, 2016), 75–­103.
 136 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

of Jewish Torah, and the Spirit’s mediation of Christ’s body as the

new building material of this new imagined social space that seeks to
unify dramatically divergent groups together.

5.1.2. Our Fathers Were All Baptized into Moses (1 Cor 10:1–­11:1)
The most important place to begin this analysis is Paul’s discussion
of Israel in 1 Corinthians 10. Paul writes, “I do not want you to
be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and
all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and in the sea” (1 Cor 10:1–­2). The use of familial language is
a distinctive character of Paul’s identity language,16 but Paul’s refer-
ence to “our fathers” in connection with the wilderness generation of
Israel is exceptional as applied to a group of which most “were gen-
tiles [ἔθνη]” (1 Cor 12:3). These markers of identity raise important
questions for how Paul sought to negotiate the Corinthian identity
in Christ as well as his regard for Israel kata sarka (1 Cor 10:18).17
Our starting point of 1 Corinthians 10 focuses upon the mutu-
ally interpretive links between chapters 10 and 12.18 Both passages
share a common subject of baptism and both passages are arranged
around a repetition of the words “all” (πάντες) and “same” (αὐτος)
to reinforce the common participation of what each group shares.
More precisely, both Israel and the church are all baptized into (εἰς)
someone (Moses for Israel, Christ for the ekklesiai). Israel, in 10:3–­4,
is depicted as all eating the “same spiritual bread” and drinking the
“same spiritual drink”; in 12:13d, there is a corresponding match

16
Cf. Joseph H. Hellerman, The Ancient Church as Family (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2001); Reider Aasgaard, My Beloved Brothers and Sisters: Christian Sib-
lingship in Paul (London: T&T Clark, 2004).
17
On the phenomena of Paul’s negotiation of “nested identities” that were
polymorphic and adaptable in the widely diverse setting of Roman Corinth, see
Cavan W. Concannon, “When You Were Gentiles”: Specters of Ethnicity in Roman
Corinth and Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2014); also Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of
Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007), 120 (“As an ‘entrepreneur of identity,’ Paul manages both the multiple
facets of his own identity as a teacher of gentiles and the new possibilities of
aggregate identity for gentiles-­in-­Christ”).
18
See the prior discussion in § 4.3.4.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 137

insofar as the church is given to drink of one spirit. Importantly both

passages are also discussed in the context of idolatry.19
The didactic purpose of these parallels is known as Paul makes it
explicit: “These things happened to them as an example, but they
were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages
has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed
lest he fall” (1 Cor 10:11–­12).20 In Paul’s retelling of the wilderness
account, Paul narrows down the liable to a few persons in their midst.

“All” were baptized and shared the same spiritual bread and
spiritual drink (10:1–­4).

With “most” of them, we are told, God was not pleased

(10:5).
“Some” of them were idolaters and indulged in fornication
and so put Christ to the test and were destroyed (10:7–­10).21

The aim here, particularly with the invocation of baptism and spiritual
bread and drink, is that there are some among the Corinthians who
“think they are standing” (10:12), presumably by virtue of a high
view of the sacraments (baptism and Eucharist). The effectiveness of
the analogy depends on the verity of the link between Israel and the
Corinthians with respect to their sacramental eating and drinking. If
all of Israel participated in the rites, and with many of them the Lord
was displeased, and some of them died (10:4–­10), then the warning
must similarly warn against a magical sacramentalism apparently held

19
It is often overlooked in this passage that Paul introduces the discussion
of ton pneumatikon with a reminder that they were formerly led astray by mute
idols, and only with the “holy spirit” are they now able to say, “Jesus is Lord”
(12:1–­3).
20
Structurally, the reference to these things occurring as an example (ταῦτα
δὲ τύποι ἡμῶν) (10:6) is framed with a reprisal of the phrase in v. 11 (ταῦτα δὲ
τυπικῶς), drawing attention to the central exhortation to avoid the fall of the
Israelites who indulged in porneia and idolatry and faced judgment (10:7–­8).
21
Again, structurally, there are five “all” clauses in 10:1–­4, which are matched
by the “many” and “some” clauses of verses 6–­10. Wayne Meeks observes a form
of rabbinic midrash in the structure of this passage that is shaped by a subtle
exegesis of Exodus 32:6. Wayne A. Meeks, “‘And Rose up to Play’: Midrash and
Paraenesis in 1 Corinthians 10:1–­22,” JSNT 16 (1982): 64–­78.
 138 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

by some of the Corinthians.22 Even though the Corinthians partic-

ipate in the body and blood of the Lord, they are not assured that
they are protected from judgment due to licentious behavior. Indeed,
Paul makes it clear that an improper observance of the Lord’s Sup-
per can result in judgment in the same way it did with Israel—­“all
are baptized and drink one Spirit,” “many have fallen ill,” and “some
have died” (1 Cor 11:29–­30; 12:12–­13; cf. 10:5, 7–­10). “Let us not
put Christ to the test,” Paul explains, “as some of them did and were
destroyed” (10:9).
Along these lines Paul also presents a series of participatory
actions that tie both groups together. This can be demonstrated in
the following:

Paul’s hearers participate in the body and blood of Christ

(10:16).

Israel are “partners” (κοινωνοί) in the altar (10:18) and

spiritual bread and drink (10:3).
Those who offer to demons and not to God are “participants
with demons” (10:20).

This is punctuated by the Deuteronomic appeal to the jealousy of

the Lord (παραζηλοῦμεν τὸν κύριον) (10:22; cf. Deut 32:21).23 The
Corinthians are exhorted to continue the very same covenantal obli-
gation that was placed upon Israel. Indeed, Paul’s reference to idol
sacrifices as offerings “to demons and not to God” itself is another

22
See the discussion by Hays on Israel as a figure of the church, after which
the church is called to regard itself as bearing the same covenantal duties to avoid
provoking the Lord’s jealousy (1 Cor 10:22; cf. Deut 32:21) and to avoid the
real possibility of judgment in their present community. Richard B. Hays, The
Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel’s Scripture (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10–­11.
23
This quotation from the Song of Moses, naturally, involves the provoca-
tion to the Lord’s jealousy, precisely with respect to idolatry. “They made me
jealous with what is no god, provoked me with their idols” (αὐτοὶ παρεζήλωσάν
με ἐπ᾿ οὐ θεῷ, παρώργισάν με ἐν τοῖς εἰδώλοις αὐτῶν). Cf. Matthew Thiessen,
“‘The Rock Was Christ’: The Fluidity of Christ’s Body in 1 Corinthians 10.4,”
JSNT 36, no. 2 (2013): 103–­26.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 139

quotation from the Song of Moses.24 That these indicate Paul had
the Song of Moses in mind becomes important when discussing the
identity of the “rock that was Christ,” and Deuteronomy 32’s own
well-­known opening adulation of “God the Rock.”
We need not speculate on whether Paul was merely inserting
Christ back into Israel’s experience for paraenesis,25 or engaging in a
form of midrashic instruction,26 or whether this indicates Israel was
saved by their sacramental participation. The much simpler point
here is that Paul affirms Israel and inserts a modicum of continuity so
that Israel’s fathers are now understood as their fathers (the fathers of
the gentile believers at Corinth). In this sense, Paul’s discussion here
is not entirely different from his recharacterization of Abraham and
Isaac and the patriarchs in Romans and Galatians—­Israel is still capa-
ble of being understood “kata sarka.” But there is a new meaning
given to the founding stories in light of Christ such that Israel points
to and stands in line with the new reality in Christ (Gal 3:8).27 The
difference in 1 Corinthians, however, is that Paul is not only redraw-
ing the ways in which Israel is understood in light of the new situa-
tion in Christ. Instead of viewing history sequentially, Paul appears to
characterize Christ outside of history and explains how the identity
and experience of both Israel and the churches are now joined with
respect to Christ.28

5.1.3. Israel, the Ekklēsiai, and the Apostolic Decree—­1 Corinthians 7–­10
The discussion of idolatry in the previous section brings up another
set of issues to examine regarding the Jewish character of the Corin-
thian ekklēsiai. In short, Paul appears to instruct the Corinthians as
though they operate as gentiles alongside Israel and as though the

24
Cf. 1 Cor 10:20 (θύσουσιν δαιμονίος καὶ ου θεῷ) with Deut 32:17 (ἔθυσαν
δαιμονίους καὶ ου θεῷ).
25
Cf. Hays, Conversion of the Imagination, 8–­12.
26
Cf. Meeks, “‘And Rose up to Play.’”
27
See, e.g., John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2015), 557–­61.
28
On the distinctly nonlinear aspect of Pauline time, see the insightful reflec-
tions of Alexandra R. Brown, “Kairos Gathered: Time, Tempo, and Typology in
I Corinthians,” Interpretation 72, no. 1 (2018): 43–­55.
 140 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

strictures of the Apostolic Decree are in effect. First Corinthians 7,

introducing the first of six περὶ δὲ clauses, represents a shift in the
letter to matters concerning what was written to Paul by his cor-
respondents. From this point to chapter 10, he engages in (among
other issues) an extended discussion on sexual immorality (πορνεία),
food sacrificed to idols, and other forms of idolatry. While the list of
issues addressed could be purely ad hoc, it is more than plausible,
given what we can know from the evidence of Acts and the later
occurring evidence, that these issues were grouped together for a par-
ticular reason.29 These were matters of legal importance for the early
Jesus movement as early churches worked out the provisions of the
Apostolic Decree.30 In other words, the combination of εἰδωλόθυτα
(food sacrificed to idols) and πορνεία is unlikely an accidental or hap-
hazard occurrence in this letter. The same coupling occurs together
in Revelation 2:14, 20 (πορνεῦσαι καὶ φαγεῖν εἰδωλόθυτα), which
also makes reference to the Decree.31 Commentators note that the

29
The claims of this thesis do not require resolution of the protracted
debates concerning the reconcilability of the Lukan Paul and the epistolary Paul.
The material drawn from Acts in this study does not handle the characterization
of Paul’s life or his theology—­the principal area of contention in these debates.
Instead, the arguments raised in this section center upon the nature and exis-
tence of the Apostolic Decree as reported in Acts, the Jewish scriptural reasoning
appealed to in the Decree’s formulation, and the plausibility of whether Paul’s
letters and the Corinthian correspondence in particular can be read consistently
with the strictures and ethos of the Decree. Along with the evidence of Acts,
knowledge of the Decree is attested to elsewhere in biblical and extrabiblical
literature; see, e.g., Rev 2:14; Did. 63; Origen (Cels. 8.29–­30). On the “brackish
waters” of the larger debates concerning the Paul of Acts and the Paul of the
epistles, see the extended discussion in Thomas E. Phillips, Paul, His Letters, and
Acts (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2009). See also n. 36 below.
30
Paul’s knowledge of and interaction with the decree were argued in John
Coolidge Hurd, The Origin of I Corinthians, 2nd ed. (Macon: Mercer University
Press, 1983), 244–­70; see also Robert Jewett, Dating Paul’s Life (London: SCM
Press, 1979). The claims made in his section will differ significantly with Hurd’s
more unconventional rereading of 1 Corinthians.
31
Note especially Rev 2:24 with the summation to “lay no other burden” (οὐ
βάλλω ἐφ᾿ ὑμᾶς ἄλλο βάρος), which hearkens to the account of Acts 15:28 (ἡμῖν
μηδὲν πλέον ἐπιτίθεσθαι ὑμῖν βάρος πλὴν τούτων τῶν ἐπάναγκες). Cf. C. K. Bar-
rett, “Things Sacrificed to Idols,” NTS 11, no. 2 (1965): 139. Admittedly, noth-
ing about porneia itself is de facto evidence that the Apostolic Decree is in view
in the Corinthian material. The collocation with idol food, however, does begin
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 141

reference to Balaam, and its corresponding idolatry and immorality in

Revelation 2, occur also in Paul’s discourse in 1 Corinthians 7–­10 and
notably 10:8, where allusion is made to Baal Peor in the context of
the Balaam accounts and its parallel references to idolatry and sexual
revelry.32 We know from historical evidence that after the apostolic
period, Christian communities continued to heed these very prohi-
bitions, likely with reference to observance of the Decree for both
Jewish and gentile Jesus followers.33 That Paul’s churches are aware
of the applicability of the Decree is supported in part by the density
of references to idol food and porneia that are present throughout
his letters (suggestive of gentile churches struggling to find ways of
adhering to its scruples).34
Other scholars have noted the connection of Paul’s specific injunc-
tions concerning εἰδωλόθυτα and πορνεία with the norms of the
Decree.35 The stipulations of the Decree as we know it are recorded
in Acts 15:20, 29,36 and are typically classified into these four instruc-
tions as applicable to gentile followers of Christ:

to build the case. But see CD 4.17–­18; 5.6–­11. In these examples the Qumran
literature associates temple purity with the prohibitions of fornication, which
defiles the temple.
32
Cf. Jude 11–­12; Barrett, “Idols,” 139; also Ben Witherington III, “Not So
Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton,” TynBul 44, no. 2 (1993): 250.
33
So, e.g., Sib. Or. 2.96 (Pseud. Phocylides 31); Origen (C. Cels. 8.29–­30)
makes explicit reference to the Decree and indicates no qualms about Christian
observance of its stipulations; see also Aristides, Apol. 15; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer.
1.6.3; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.1.8.3ff. Cf. Richard Bauckham, “James
and the Jerusalem Church,” in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting, vol. 4,
Palestinian Setting, ed. Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995),
466–­67.
34
Cf. 1 Cor 5:1; 6:18; 8:4; Rom 13:13; Gal 5:19; 1 Thess 4:3.
35
On this, see notably Jacques Dupont, Gnosis: La connaissance religieuse
dans les Épîtres de Saint Paul (Paris: Louvain, 1949), 265–­377; Barrett, “Idols”;
Witherington, “Not So Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton”; on the denial that
the Apostolic Decree is in view, see, e.g., Gordon D. Fee, “Είδωλόϑυτα Once
Again: An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8–­10,” Biblica 61, no. 2 (1980):
172–­97.
36
Since Baur’s influential thesis concerning the Petrine/Pauline divisions
within the earliest Christian communities, the methodological exclusion of Acts
evidence from Pauline studies has long functioned as a prevailing norm in the
scholarship (German scholarship in particular). Cf. Ferdinand Christian Baur, “Die
Christuspartei in der korinthischen Gemeinde, der Gegensatz des petrinischen und
 142 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

1. Abstain from things polluted by idols (ἀπέχεσθαι τῶν

ἀλισγημάτων τῶν εἰδώλων)
2. Abstain from sexual immorality (πορνεία)
3. Abstain from food that has been strangled (τοῦ πνικτοῦ)
4. Abstain from food “of blood” (τοῦ αἵματος)
Most recognize the terms of the Apostolic Decree as deriving
from Leviticus 17–­19 (in particular 17:8–­9; 10–­13). As Barrett has
explained, it was natural for a Jew to put together the injunctions
pertaining to food (whether offered to idols, properly slaughtered,
or properly drained of its blood).37 Bauckham offers a persuasive
account of why precisely these four prohibitions were sufficient for
enumeration by the early Christian churches (to the exclusion of oth-
ers that are not named).38 Prior to this point, the prevailing theories

paulinischen Christenthums in der ältesten Kirche, der Apostel Petrus in Rom,”

Tübingen Zeitschrift für Theologie 5, no. 4 (1831): 61–­206. The influential works
of Philipp Vielhauer and Ernst Haenchen are representative of scholars favoring
the continued disjuncture between the Lukan Paul and the epistolary Paul. See
Philipp Vielhauer, “Zum ‘Paulinismus’ der Apostelgeschichte,” EvT 10 (1950):
1–­15; Ernst Haenchen, “The Book of Acts as Source Material for the History of
Earliest Christianity,” in Studies in Luke–­Acts, ed. J. Louis Martyn and Leander
E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), 258–­78. In Anglophone scholarship, by
contrast, there continues to emerge a greater willingness to allow both Acts and
the Pauline letters to serve as reliable and mutually supportive evidence for recon-
structing Paul’s life, theology, and mission. See, e.g., Colin Hemer, The Book of
Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989); Stanley
E. Porter, Paul in Acts (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2001), 187–­206. See also
the recent comments of Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2016), 167–­69 (characterizing his thesis as coinciding
with Luke’s characterization of a Torah-­observant Paul and approving of the use of
the Lukan Paul to serve as an interpretive guide to the letters of Paul).
37
The correct understanding of the injunctions on “blood” and “stran-
gling” is difficult. Philo (Spec. 4.122) explains that the prohibition on blood
concerns meat that has been killed by “strangling and choking” (ἄγχοντες καὶ
ἀποπνίγοντες) and consequently improperly drained of its blood. Cf. Bauckham,
“James and the Jerusalem Church,” 460.
38
Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church”; see also Markus Bock-
muehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian
Public Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 164–­73 (locating the Pauline legal
requirements for gentiles principally within the Noachide Commandments).
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 143

hypothesized either that such practices hindered table fellowship

between Jewish and gentile Jesus followers,39 or that these were fea-
tures of the Noachide commandments to be applied for more uni-
versal application.40 But as Bauckham argued, these four prohibitions
are poorly tailored for such proposed ends. On commensality alone,
provisions on pork, shellfish, and wine, among a host of other mat-
ters, are patently missing.41
Bauckham observed that the key to the selection of precisely these
four prohibitions is explained by the catchphrase ‫( בתוך‬amidst) in the
Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–19). Bauckham’s explanation is worth
quoting in full:
In Leviticus 17–18 (MT) there are five occurrences of the
phrase “the alien who sojourns in your/their midst” (Lv.
17:8, 10, 12, 13; 18:26, all using ‫ בתוככם‬or ‫)בתוכם‬. Since
two of these occurrences (17:10, 12) refer to the same pro-
hibition repeated, there are in fact four commandments in
Leviticus 17–18 which not only the Israelite but also “the
alien who sojourns in your/their midst” is obliged to keep.
These correspond to the four prohibitions of the apostolic
decree, in the order in which they occur in the apostolic let-
ter (Acts 15:29).42

Bauckham connects this idea of the nations who are joined with
God’s people with key Jewish texts that speak of those who “shall
dwell in the midst” of Israel (most importantly, Amos 9:11–12,
which stands at the climax of the speech of James in the Acts 15
account). Bauckham observes a deliberate conflation of texts in Acts
15:16–20, employing the Jewish exegetical strategy of gezera shawa,
which converge on the mutually interpretive locution concerning

39
E.g., Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-­Acts: The Social
and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1989), 98–­99; see also the broader discussion in Jack T. Sanders, The Jews
in Luke-­Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 120.
40
E.g., Bockmuehl, Jewish Law, 146–­67; also David R. Catchpole, “Paul,
James and the Apostolic Decree,” NTS 23, no. 4 (1977): 429; and Hans-­Joachim
Schoeps, Paulus: Die Theologie des Apostels im Lichte der judischen Religions­
geschichte (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959), 66–­67.
41
Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” 459–­67.
42
Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” 461.
 144 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

the nations who dwell “in the midst” of Israel. These include Jer-
emiah 12:16LXX (ἐν μέσῳ τοῦ λαοῦ μου | ‫ ;)בתוך אמי‬also Zechariah
2:11aLXX (2:15a: κατασκηνώσουσιν ἐν μέσῳ σου | ‫)וׁשׁבכתי בתוכך‬.43
The bringing together of these texts connects ideas of “building” an
eschatological people, with the gentile nations who are “built in the
midst of my people” (Jer 12:16), a people upon whom God’s name
is invoked, thereby extending Israel’s covenant status as God’s people
to the gentile nations. The import of the Apostolic Decree in Acts 15,
per Bauckham, is that “the nations qua Gentiles belong to YHWH”
and, as such, are “included in the covenant relationship (God’s name
has been invoked over them). Thus, whereas Gentiles could not enter
God’s presence in the old Temple without becoming Jews, in the new
Temple of the messianic age . . . they could do so as Gentiles.”44
In this light, the four provisions of the Apostolic Decree were
not an eclectic summary of gentile Christian ethics, nor was it a
compromise for proper Jew-­gentile table fellowship, but a rigorous
exegetical solution to how gentiles, who now dwell in the midst of
Israel as beneficiaries to Israel’s covenant promises and blessings, are
to live under Torah. It named a scriptural basis for the manner in
which gentiles were recognized under the aegis of God’s covenant
with Israel, and how they were to dwell in the midst of God’s temple
presence in the eschatological age. Crucially, this explicitly denied
full proselytization or circumcision of gentiles as a basis to receive
this covenant status. The purity demands of God’s temple presence
require gentile inclusion with God’s people to conform to the Holi-
ness Code, which is precisely where the Decree purports to derive
these legal commandments.45
The majority view is that Paul does not know the Apostolic Decree
as recited in Acts, at least not in his first writing of 1 Corinthians.46 The

43
The conflated texts built around Amos 9:11–­12 include allusions to Hosea
3:5; Jer 12:15; Isa 45:21. The fuller discussion is worth consulting and cannot be
resummarized here. See Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” 453–­61.
44
Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” 458. Note, the theme of
the Nations offering up worship to the Lord in every place as those calling upon
the name of the Lord is precisely how Paul begins 1 Corinthians; see § 4.1.
45
See, e.g., Terrance Callan, “The Background of the Apostolic Decree (Acts
15:20,29, 21:25),” CBQ 55, no. 2 (1993): 284–­97. See n. 29 above.
46
See Paul J. Achtemeier, “An Elusive Unity: Paul, Acts, and the Early
Church,” CBQ 48, no. 1 (1986): 1–­26. Achtemeier concludes that the Acts
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 145

standard reasons are that the Decree is not appealed to in the Antioch
Incident (Gal 2) and our present passage (1 Cor 8–­10), where it
would have been of most use to him.47 But this line of reasoning is
fairly quick. What would an appeal to the Decree actually contribute
to Paul’s discussion of idol food and porneia in 1 Corinthians 8–­10?
The very reason that Paul addresses it as part of the “matters [they]
wrote about,” if anything, likely demonstrates that all sides took for
granted the operable provisions of the Decree and the accompanying
duties and controversies they generate. The issue appears not to be
whether the Decree governs the issue at all, but rather the extent and
application of its stipulations in daily living. Bockmuehl affirms that
1 Corinthians 5–­10 “clearly parallels the halakhic concerns of Acts
15,” reading it almost as a “commentary on the Decree.”48
Witherington makes the case that Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthi-
ans 8 and 10 reinforces the injunction on idol food in a pagan con-
text. Given the use of Exodus 32:6 in 1 Corinthians 10:7 (with its
reference to Israel’s “playful” idolatry at the golden calf incident),
Paul has in view not simply Jewish scruples about meat sold or con-
sumed in temple precincts, but rather the type of full-­fledged idol-
atry which would trigger the strictures of the Decree.49 Bauckham
has also argued that Paul’s letters do, in fact, reveal an awareness of
the Decree, and poses the provocative suggestion that it was in fact
some of his teaching reflected in 1 Corinthians 10 regarding idol
meat that was the decisive point of dissociation between himself
and Silas.50

accounts can be reconciled with the Jerusalem visits reported in Galatians, and
therefore preserves space for Paul’s conflicts in Antioch to inform the basis for
the Decree. Against this, see Catchpole, “Paul, James and the Apostolic Decree,”
430 (arguing that not only do the accounts of Acts 15 and Gal 2 likely refer to
the same conflict, but also that the “presuppositions of the Decree would have
been repugnant to Paul”).
47
E.g., W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements
in Pauline Theology (1965; repr., Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 119; Cf. Bock-
muehl, Jewish Law, 167–­68. See also Fee, “Είδωλόϑυτα Once Again,” 183.
48
Bockmuehl, Jewish Law, 168 (citing Marcel Simon, “The Apostolic Decree
and Its Setting in the Ancient Church,” in Le Christianisme antique et son con-
texte religieux [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1981], 437).
49
Witherington, “Not So Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton,” 247–­48.
50
Bauckham, “James and the Jerusalem Church,” 470–­71.
 146 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

If we are correct that Paul and his churches operated with a ver-
sion of the Apostolic Decree, as we know it from Acts 15, then we
are in the territory of understanding the Corinthian letters revealing
ways in which early Christian communities struggled to understand
how Jewish Christians and gentile Christians were to worship along-
side one another. Paul, by never wanting to impose any obstacle for
the gospel for the sake of gentiles (1 Cor 9:12), strenuously opposes
the Judaizing of gentile believers; but this does not imply that the law
is completely set aside for Jewish believers. If “weakness” in Paul’s
various weak/strong discourses (e.g., Romans 14–­15) corresponds to
those wrestling with Jewish customs,51 then there is good reason to
find that Paul recognizes the struggles of those Jews in Christ striv-
ing to keep the traditions of the fathers (1 Cor 8:11). As in Acts 15,
Jewish Christians did not cease keeping Torah, but instructed gentile
believers that they could proceed with “no further burden” than the
four stipulations that derive from Leviticus 17. This principle begins
to better explain the different categories of persons with respect to
the law in 1 Corinthians 9:19–­23 (whether Jewish, or those under
the law, or those outside the law but under the law of Christ, or
the “weak”).52 Indeed, this contextual configuration provides the
basis for the most natural reading of the difficult 1 Corinthians 7:19:
“Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obey-
ing the commandments of God is everything.” In a situation where
the Decree regulates the Corinthian churches, Paul speaks to two
different groups of believers who uphold Torah in their respective
ways—­Jewish believers who (subject to their regard for their gentile
siblings) assume the full burden of the Torah, and gentile believers
who live as those “in the midst” of Israel and uphold only those com-
mandments applicable to them.
While space will not permit a full exposition of this principle in
his other letters, it is interesting to observe how some of Paul’s more
puzzling statements with regard to the Torah work better in a con-
text where Jewish Christians keep the commandments in their distinct

51
See also the discussion in p. 147n53 and p. 210n4.
52
Cf. Mark D. Nanos, “Paul’s Relationship to Torah in Light of His Strategy
‘to Become Everything to Everyone’ (1 Cor 9:19–­23),” in Reading Corinthians
and Philippians within Judaism (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2017), 4:52–­92.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 147

expression and likewise gentile believers observe Torah under the law
of Christ (and presumably the Torah as applied to the nations in the
midst of Israel). Both the circumcised and the uncircumcised who are
justified by faith are said to “uphold the law” (Rom 3:31), just as the
circumcised and uncircumcised are urged not to change their status,
since what matters is “keeping the commandments of God” (1 Cor
7:19). Paul’s discussion in Romans 14–­15 concerning the weak and the
strong, a passage that resonates with matters pertaining to observing
the Torah,53 concludes with an exhortation to “bear [βαστάζειν] with
the weak” (15:1). Likewise, Galatians elucidates the “law of Christ” in
terms that they “bear [βαστάζετε] one another’s burdens” and impor-
tantly, that they “bear one’s own load” (ἕκαστος γὰρ τὸ ἴδιον φορτίον
βαστάσει) (Gal 6:2, 5). The language of “bearing” (βαστάζειν) and
“burden” (which is not common in Paul) speaks in the tenor and dic-
tion of Acts 15:10, 28, wherein gentile believers are not placed with a
burden that Israel has been unable to bear (βαστάσαι).
We know from history that this unified vision of “the nations . . .
built up in the midst of” Israel (Jer 12:16), not only failed to take
shape as Paul hoped, but any prospects of fulfilling such prophetic
unification effectively splintered after the events of 70 CE, growing
increasingly fractious as the polemics of later generations eventually
gave way to mutual cursing.54 To continue with the carefully balanced

53
The conflicts between “weak” and “strong” are not neatly divided along
Jewish and gentile lines, but the appeal to “clean” food (Rom 14:14, 20) and
the reference to “days” are best explained with reference to Jewish customs con-
cerning food and Sabbath. See Barclay, Gift, 511; also Volker Gäckle, Die Starken
und die Schwachen in Korinth und in Rom (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); cf.
Mark Reasoner, The Strong and the Weak: Romans 14.1–­15.13 in Context (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
54
We gather from the early Christian witnesses, not least Justin, that the
divide of Jews and Christian “gentiles” was already in process within the second
generation of Christian churches. By Tertullian, the divide is much more pro-
nounced: “Out of the womb of Rebecca, ‘two peoples and two nations were
about to proceed,’—­of course those of the Jews, that is of Israel; and of the Gen-
tiles, that is ours. . . . Beyond doubt, through the edict of the divine utterance, the
prior and ‘greater’ people—­that is the Jewish—­must necessarily serve the ‘less’;
and the ‘less’ people—­that is the Christian—­overcome the ‘greater.’” Tertullian,
Answer to the Jews 1.2. On the reciprocal cursing among Jews and Christians, see
Hillel I. Newman, “The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature,” JTS 50,
 148 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

arrangement of Jewish and gentile Christians together in mutual, coor-

dinated worship without the temple would prove too much to over-
come. But Paul’s letters are innocent of the temple’s destruction, and
the historical outcome cannot be read backward into Paul’s apostolic
efforts for unified worship of the one God by both Jews and gentiles.

5.1.4. Macrocosmic Temple and Expanding Categories of Sacred

Space
Expanding the conversation over temple replacement or “superses-
sionism” requires a better handling of the logic of sacred space in the
Hebrew Bible. The emergence of a new or heavenly iteration of tem-
ple, at least in the Hebrew Bible, does not signal the obsolescence or
eradication of the former holy places. In Solomon’s prayer of dedica-
tion of the temple (1 Kgs 8), he asks: “Will God indeed dwell on the
earth? Even heaven and the highest cannot contain you, much less
this house that I have built” (8:27). The temple is a “house for the
name of the Lord, the God of Israel” (8:17), but he also is the God
who hears “from heaven, [his] dwelling place” (8:30). The connec-
tion portrayed here between God’s house in the earthly temple and
the heavenly temple is indeed not simple but multilayered. The mul-
tiplicity of dimensions in the heavenly and earthly registers of God’s
dwelling has often been analyzed under the rubric of a macrocosmic
temple,55 in which the earthly temple serves as a copy, the symbology
of which represents the whole universe.56 Accordingly, that there is a

no. 1 (1999): 59–­79; and Ruth Langer, Cursing the Christians? A History of the
Birkat HaMinim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 16–­40.
55
The seminal insights derive from W. F. Albright, Archaeology and the Reli-
gion of Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1953), 142–­55; this
argument was given fuller articulation in Jon D. Levenson, Creation and the
Persistence of Evil (1988; repr., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994),
78–­99; and in Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion (New York: HarperCollins,
1987), 111–­84. See also James R. Davila, “The Macrocosmic Temple, Scriptural
Exegesis, and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” DSD 9 (2002): 1–­19.
56
Josephus explains that the tabernacle, its architecture, instruments, and
priestly vestments, were all “made in way of imitation and representation of the
universe [διατύπωσιν τῶν ὅλων]” (Ant. 3:181); also Philo, Moses 2.98–­103;
also JW 5.212–­13. See also Wis 18:24 (“For on his long robe the whole world
was depicted”); Sir 45:8; 50:7 (describing the high priest’s appearance “like the
morning star among the clouds”).
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 149

spiritual dimension to the physical, earthly temple is decidedly not a

Christian innovation, but also a key feature of Jewish literature.
Levenson explains that “the Temple and the world, God’s local-
ization and his ubiquity, are not generally perceived in the Hebrew
Bible as standing in tension.”57 Psalm 11:4 places these sacred locales
together in parallel congruence:

YHWH is in his holy temple;

YHWH is enthroned in heaven.

This notion of correspondence between the heavenly and earthly

temples is indebted in no small part to the tradition found in Exodus
25:9, wherein God instructs Moses to build the sanctuary “in accor-
dance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the taber-
nacle and all of its furniture” (Exod 25:9).58 Beginning largely with
the traditions embedded within the Prophets, one can find the focal
point of the ancient Hebrew traditions moving away from the earthly
temple and toward visions of the heavenly temple in session with
its angelic retinue.59 These passages in turn inspire the conceptual
license for other Second Temple texts (e.g., 1 Enoch 14, Songs of
the Sabbath Sacrifice, and Temple Scroll) to portray a heavenly tem-
ple with its host of angelic priests and cultic analogues to correlate
with the earthly temple. Thus, for example, in 1 Enoch 14 the floor
of snow (14:10) and the ceiling of fire and lightning (14:11) sig-
nify not the living cherubim surrounding the throne, but the woven
cherubim symbolism hanging on walls of the tabernacle (Exod 26:1,
31; 36:8) or engraved on the walls of the temple (1 Kgs 6:29; Ezek

57
Levenson, Sinai, 138. He explains that “the earthly Temple is the world
in nuce; the world is the Temple in extenso. Temple and world do not stand in
dialectical tension but in a relationship characterized by complementarity” (141);
see also his elaboration on these remarks in Jon D. Levenson, “The Temple and
the World,” Journal of Religion 64, no. 3 (1984): 275–­98.
58
Also Philo, Her. 112 (“God . . . prepared in a symbolical manner
[συμβολικῶς] the sacred tabernacle and the things in it, a thing made after the
model and in imitation of wisdom”); also Wis 9.8 (“You have given command to
build a temple on your holy mountain, and an altar in the city of your habitation,
a copy of the holy tent that you prepared from the beginning”).
59
Cf. Isa 6:1–­8; Ezek 1:1–­28; 10:20.
 150 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

41:15–­26).60 Likewise the “watchers and holy ones” of 1 Enoch 14

are those who “draw near to him . . . by night or by day” and “do
not depart from him” (14:22–­23). Significant here is the allusion of
the term “to draw near” (ἐγγίζω), which echoes a key LXX term for
priests in cultic contexts serving in the sanctuary.61
That Paul refers to God’s temple in terms other than the Jerusalem
temple is not de facto evidence that Paul’s pneuma replaces or super-
sedes the temple. This is consistent with the way the Hebrew Scrip-
tures elsewhere describe sacred space. While the temple at Mount
Zion was to be known as the enduring dwelling place of the Lord
(1 Kgs 8:13; Ps 68:16), the Scriptures repeatedly reserve space for
God’s presence to be more than the temple. Solomon’s dedicatory
prayer articulates this very point: not even the highest heavens can
contain God (1 Kgs 8:27). It is a feature of Scripture to speak of only
a portion of God’s presence to reside with his people. It is his name
that dwells there; it is only a portion of him that Moses is permitted
to see.62
Accordingly, the import of a corresponding fit between the heav-
enly and the earthly temples does not imply that both registers must
visibly agree together in harmonic concord at every point in time. In
fact, there is a distinct strand in Old Testament and Second Temple
texts that view the heavenly temple and the cultic service of the heav-
enly host as linked despite the fact that the earthly analogue appears
to the contrary. The import is on the symbolic nexus the space pos-
sesses with respect to the heavenly reality. Accordingly, even during
the first exile (587–­539 BCE), as the temple lay in ruins, Israelites
were called to direct their prayers toward the place upon which the

60
Also Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apoc-
alypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 15.
61
Cf. Ezek 33:13–­16; 45:4; also “day and night,” cf. Josephus, Ant. 7.367
and Rev 4:8. Also George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipi-
ents of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100, no. 4 (1981): 585n37; and Him-
melfarb, Ascent, 20.
62
Deut 12:11; Exod 33:18–­23. Cf. Benjamin D. Sommer, The Bodies of God
and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
(contending for a divergent set of traditions perceivable in the various forms of
divine epiphanies and iterations of sacred space).
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 151

temple stood (and was expected to stand again).63 The temple mount
is regarded as an axis point of heaven and earth—­the cosmic moun-
tain as a permanent, accessible testament that God is on his throne.
This is why Daniel directs his prayers in the direction of Mount Zion
even though the temple is razed (Dan 6:11). Levenson writes that
“Zion represents the possibility of meaning above history, out of his-
tory, through an opening into the realm of the ideal. . . . The two
tiers, the earthly and the heavenly, are not closed to each other, but
open, and interpenetrating on Zion.”64
Interestingly, some of the Jewish apocalyptic texts can speak in
terms of the fusion of heavenly and earthly temples.65 So in the vision
of 4 Ezra, the angel instructs Ezra “to go into the field where there was
no foundation of any building, for no man’s building could endure in
a place where the city of the Most High was to be revealed” (10:54).
Ådna persuasively demonstrates that the destroyed city of Jerusalem
portrayed in this chapter is restored in the temple that subsumes the
place where the old temple lay in ruins—­the temple built by the hands
of man.66 Explains Tiwald, “it was a widespread assumption . . . that
the temple in Jerusalem would not prevail in eschatological times,
because the handmade temple had to be replaced by the true escha-
tological temple of God. . . . [I]n the eschaton, this heavenly tem-
ple would be transferred down to earth.”67 The vision of 1 Enoch

63
Levenson, Sinai, 125, 175.
64
Levenson, Sinai, 141–­42.
65
R. J. McKelvey, The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament (Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1969), 40 (“Since the heavenly temple is the new
temple it follows that it must one day descend to earth [which in turn leads to
an account of how the] fusion of the concept of the heavenly temple and the
new temple found its logical outcome in the conviction that in the eschatological
age when God dwelt with his people in a new and unprecedented way he would
bring his temple with him from heaven.”).
66
Jostein Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel: Die Tempelaktion und das Tem-
pelwort als Ausdruck seiner Messianischen Sendung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2000), 47–­48; also Markus Tiwald, “Christ as Hilasterion (Rom 3:25): Pauline
Theology on the Day of Atonement in the Mirror of Early Jewish Thought,”
in The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Christian Tra-
ditions, ed. Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas (Leiden: Brill Academic, 2011),
200.
67
Tiwald, “Hilasterion,” 200; see also 1 En. 90.28–­29; 4 Ezra 10.54.
 152 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

similarly reports the “ancient house being transformed” into a “new

house, greater and loftier than the first one” and established in the
same location as the first (1 En. 90:28–­29).68
The distinctive genius (or peculiarity) of early Christian and Pau-
line reflection along these lines is that the heavenly iteration of God’s
dwelling is described in terms of a person. The earliest Christians,
reflecting on the identity of a divine Christ in relationship with his
people, applied to him the only analogue they knew that could name
this reality: the heavenly temple, God with us. Christ becomes recog-
nized as the temple not made by hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor
5:1–­2). Leaders of the church are then correspondingly understood
in terms of sacred architecture in a relational-­structural pattern as
both pillars and members of his body (and at least in later Christian
tradition, living stones of the temple).69 Certainly, this early Chris-
tian formulation bears significant points of departure with the Jewish
texts. In locating the temple around Christ, Paul appeals to a range of
diverse images of sacrifice and the altar, and most importantly, rechar-
acterizes “access” to God in a relationship of unprecedented love and
intimacy (Rom 5:1–­5; 2 Cor 3:17–­18). But Pauline thought neces-
sarily draws on Jewish reflections of the temple to inform and invest
the earthly symbols of sacred space with new meaning. Paul saw with
the arrival of Jesus Christ a fusion of horizons between the heavenly
and the earthly ways of conceiving the temple presence of God.
Consequently, this heavenly reality in Christ does not imply that
something was deficient or defunct for the ongoing Jewish practice
of the law, the covenant, and temple worship.70 Indeed, the evidence

68
Also Hag 2:9 (“[T]he latter glory of this house shall be greater than the
former”).
69
Cf. 1 Cor 3:10 (Christ as the foundation of God’s building); cf. Rev 21:22;
Gal 2:9 (the apostles as “pillars”); cf. Rev 21:14; also Eph 2:20–­21; Mk 12:10;
Matt 21:42; Acts 4:11; 1 Pet 2:4–­8. The Petrine tradition of the rock upon
which the church is built is supplemented by later traditions with James as occu-
pying a role as “the rampart” of the people or “wall” of the people. Cf. Eusebius,
Hist. Eccl. 2.23.7 with Isa 54:12; see also C. K. Barrett, “Paul and the ‘Pillar’
Apostles,” in Studia Paulina, ed. J. N. Sevenster and W. C. van Unnik (Haarlem:
Bohn, 1953), 1–­20.
70
For a recent discussion of supersession in interpreting cultic metaphors (in
a Petrine but also Pauline context), see now Max Botner, “The Essence of a Spir-
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 153

is thin that Paul regarded his mission as establishing “churches” that

were separate in identity and administration from Israel’s covenant.
On the contrary, Paul regarded his calling as standing in line with
the prophet Jeremiah.71 If we think in spatial terms, Paul regarded
the inhabited world with Jerusalem still at the center. In Galatians
2:1–­10, we catch a glimpse of his self-­understanding of his “mission
to the uncircumcised” as that which emanates out from Jerusalem.
While he wants to make clear that the “right hand of fellowship”
from the pillar apostles did not “contribute anything to [him]” (Gal
2:6), he still regards the corresponding “mission to the circumcised”
as linked in a mutual effort, sharing the same concerns, and having its
bearings centered on Jerusalem. In Romans, we find Paul describing
the “collection” as an offering of the gentiles, its symbolic value cast
not only in cultic terms, but in terms of the location on which it is
offered: Jerusalem and the temple.72
A simplistic supersessionist reading of Paul that supplants the
Jerusalem temple with a Christian temple of the Holy Spirit fails to
grapple with the fact that Paul, alongside other Jewish traditions on
the succession of sacred space, can negotiate multiple dimensions of
thinking about the Temple. There is no Jewish tradition that regards
Bethel as having been superseded by the tabernacle, or that Sinai
has been wholly replaced by Zion. Rather, what is disclosed of the
heavenly reality informs what can be known of the existing earthly

itual House: Misunderstanding Metaphor and the Question of Supersessionism

in 1 Peter,” JBL 139, no. 2 (2020): 409–­25. For a broader history of Pauline
scholarship on Israel and the church, see Christopher Zoccali, Whom God Has
Called: The Relationship of Church and Israel in Pauline Interpretation, 1920 to
the Present (Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2014).
71
Cf. Gal 1:15; Jer 1:5; and Isa 49:1–­6. On the self-­identification of Paul
with Jeremiah’s calling, see Scott J. Hafemann, “Paul’s ‘Jeremiah’ Ministry in
Reverse and the Reality of the New Covenant,” in Paul’s Message and Ministry in
Covenant Perspective: Selected Essays (Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2015), 107–­15; cf.
Lutz Doering, “The Commissioning of Paul: Light from the Prophet Jeremiah
on the Self-­Understanding of the Apostle?” in Jeremiah’s Scriptures: Production,
Reception, Interaction, and Transformation, ed. Hindy Najman and Konrad
Schmid (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 544–­65.
72
Romans 15:16–­33; 1 Cor 16:1–­5. Cf. David J. Downs, The Offering of the
Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic
Contexts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016).
 154 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

symbols. The arrival of a newer temple does not signal the obso-
lescence of the other. On the contrary, in the examples reviewed, it
appears that the physical and the heavenly registers of sacred space
belong together, relate to one another, and correspond with each
other (even in cases where the physical state diverges in appearance
from the function and purity of the heavenly version). If the earthly
tabernacle appears destroyed and “wasting away,” there is a “heavenly
dwelling,” a “building from God . . . not made with hands” that the
Spirit guarantees will house God’s people (2 Cor 4:16–­5:1).
If we operate along the standard burdens of proof, Paul’s undis-
puted letters were innocent of the knowledge of the destruction of
the Jerusalem temple—­a fact that both informs and constrains Paul’s
cultic and temple-­inflected imagery.73 And even after the destruction
of the temple, it was the expectation of Israelites that the temple
would be rebuilt on Mount Zion (e.g., 4 Ezra 10:45–­55). Even to
this day, faithful Jews pray the Amidah at synagogue: “May it be your
will, O my God and God of my fathers, that the Temple be rebuilt
speedily in our days.”

5.2. Thirdspace and Not Third Race

Returning to our heuristic spatial paradigm of Thirdspace, Paul’s
antithetical schema of a united group that is “neither Jew nor Gen-
tile” and “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision” has led some to
conclude that a new entity emerges in Paul’s gospel in terms of a
“third race” of the Christian church that transcends the former cat-
egories in racial or ethnic terms.74 Along these lines Boyarin argued
that Paul relied on pneuma to erase ethnic distinctions in his desire to

73
Also Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 2017), xii.
74
E.g., Michael F. Bird, An Anomalous Jew: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and
Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 54; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faith-
fulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 1143–­49; also Love L. Sechrest, A
Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 164,
210. On early attestations of Christians as “third race” or “new race,” see Tertul-
lian, Ad Nationes, 1.8.1; Apologeticum 42; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.4.2. The “third
race” motif first appears in the Preaching of Peter. E.g., Abraham J. Malherbe,
“The Apologetic Theology of the Preaching of Peter,” Restoration Quarterly
13, no. 4 (1970): 220–­21 (“Preaching is the first Christian writing to demon-
strate the church’s self-­consciousness by dividing humanity into Greeks, Jews,
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 155

overcome all difference that they be transmuted into the Hellenistic

One.75 Likewise, for Wright the “third race [or] something approach-
ing it” is a “strange new thing” that he feels constrained to discuss
in terms of “race” (provided we use the term in ancient rather than
anachronistic contexts).76 Even the recent and engaging proposal
from Joshua Garroway, while disagreeing with Wright’s characteri-
zation of a transcendent “third race,” nevertheless still reaches for a
synthetic ethnic marker when characterizing Paul’s identity language
for gentiles as forming a hybridized identity as “Gentile Jews.”77
This study has sought to provide another way of characterizing
Paul’s unity discourse that does not rely on elusive notions of race and
ethnicity per se, nor the spiritual reconstitution of ethnicity in Paul’s
own discourse. After all, “third race” is not found in Paul. And even
where it appears in the early Christian literature of the second century
and onward, the epithet of Christians as a “third race” scarcely resem-
bles the criterion for “ethnicity,” whether evaluated from modern or
ancient standards.78 Erich Gruen’s able handling of the occurrences
of “third race” in early Christian texts explains that what is in view by
the term is not an ethnic identification vis-­à-­vis Jews and Greeks, but
rather most naturally refers to the cultic distinctives of the Christian
community and the way God is worshipped among the three reli-
gious groups (Jews, gentiles, and Christians).79 Applied to Paul, his
unitive strategy strives to locate Jews and gentiles in a transformed
understanding of shared cultic space, rather than necessarily requiring
any ethnic or racial natures to be transformed. Paul instructs both
the circumcised and the uncircumcised to each “remain in the con-

and Christians as three races. Christians are said to worship God as a third race in
a new way”); cf. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.5, 41.
75
Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1997), 7.
76
Wright, PFG, 1448–­49.
77
Joshua D. Garroway, Paul’s Gentile-­Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, but Both
(New York: Macmillan, 2012).
78
E.g., Herodotus, Hist. 8.144.2–­3 (in an oft-­cited passage listing the char-
acteristics for “Greekness” in terms of common blood, language, sacrifices, and
traditional life patterns and traditions).
79
Erich S. Gruen, “Christians as a ‘Third Race’: Is Ethnicity at Issue?” in
Christianity in the Second Century: Themes and Developments, ed. James Carleton
Paget and Judith Lieu (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 241–­42.
 156 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

dition in which [they] were called” (1 Cor 7:17–­20).80 The various

differences are neither transformed, nor transcended; instead they are
accommodated in a new kind of social pattern that requires mutu-
ality of other-­regard and sacrificial giving for the sake of communal
unity. For Paul, the unity that the Spirit establishes is not ethnic, but
cultic—­accommodating the ways in which Jews and gentiles can be
joined in their distinct practices of worship.
The concept of Thirdspace is helpful here precisely because of its
ability to open new ways to describe how Paul strives to draw together
opposing viewpoints to inhabit a shared sense of space together with-
out conflating into one another. Using the trialectic scheme in critical
spatial theory, if the “temple” can be commonly discussed both mate-
rially and symbolically (Firstspace and Secondspace, respectively, as
places both real and idealized), Paul opts for a more creative and dis-
tinctly relational aspect of conceiving and articulating the way space is
communicated. The rubric of Thirdspace provides better conceptual
categories to name Paul’s own spatial discourse in service of Jew-­
gentile unity. In the context of remediating deep divisions, Soja says
of Thirdspace, “the original binary choice is not dismissed entirely
but is subjected to a creative process of restructuring that draws selec-
tively and strategically from the two opposing categories to open new
alternatives.”81
Applied to Paul, the new creation “in Christ” brings Jews and
gentiles together without necessarily altering their ethnicity or cul-
tural traditions. What is “new” is the space that they inhabit together,
a “temple of the Holy Spirit” that is neither fully Jewish (the inclusion
of the gentiles expands the underlying temple cult) nor fully gentile
(gentiles worship “the One God” of the Jewish Shema and carry on
the same oath of covenant loyalty [1 Cor 8:6; 10:22]). In critical spa-
tial terms, Paul creatively recombines Jews and gentiles together into
a unity that avoids the closures that have separated the two groups. It
is a space that is actually lived in and shared, and the tensions between

80
On this significance of this principle in the Corinthian context, see J. Brian
Tucker, Remain in Your Calling: Paul and the Continuation of Social Identities
in 1 Corinthians (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2011).
81
Soja, Thirdspace, 5. See also Patrick Schreiner, The Body of Jesus: A Spatial
Analysis of the Kingdom of Matthew (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 49.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 157

opposing people groups are not hypothetically sorted out, but are
attempted to be mutually resolved, however difficult those conflicts
might prove to settle. Spirit in this sense is not necessarily understood
ontologically (as in the means by which believers have their identity
transformed). It is better understood in a cultic sense for the complex
of relationships it brings together around the person of Christ. In this
space, Jewish believers remain Jews, and gentile believers worship the
one God as gentiles in their midst, bearing the burdens of the mem-
bers of the new assembly in obligation to the holy commandments
and in the pattern of Christ’s own ministry of self-­giving.

5.3. Comparisons with Stoic and Greco-­Roman Conceptions

of Pneuma
Having set forth the full argument of Paul’s view of the pneuma, we
are now in a place to offer some meaningful comparisons with Stoic
and related Greco-­Roman views of the pneuma consistent with what
has been developed here. From a broad level of abstraction, Pauline
and Stoic pneumatology share a significant amount of terminology
and ideas. Both view pneuma as a unifying element and both are
located within larger socio-­ethical patterns of living where koinonia
among fellow humans directs the tenor of their relations with others.
However, on a closer level of examination, with attention paid to the
ordering principles behind the shared terminology, these similarities
prove significantly less impressive, even conflicting. Consistent with
this, recent studies that have compared Paulinism with Stoicism find
either remarkable parallels or incommensurable differences and do so
for vastly different reasons.82 For example, Thorsteinsson’s compar-
ison of Christian sources with those of Roman Stoicism reveal that
they “are fundamentally similar in terms of morality and ethics” when

82
On the comparison of Paul and the Stoics in particular, see the com-
ments and the literature cited in C. Kavin Rowe, One True Life: The Stoics and
Early Christians as Rival Traditions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016),
175–­204, who depends readily on the proposals from Alasdair MacIntyre, Whose
Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
1988), 370–­88 (emphasizing the limits and even at times untranslatability of
ideas and concepts between competing comparative schemes).
 158 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

comparing the aims and shape of their moral teachings.83 By contrast,

Kavin Rowe’s recent study sought to compare related themes and
concepts of both traditions but on the broader frame of their prac-
ticing horizons. He concludes from this vantagepoint that there is a
virtual untranslatability of even shared concepts and words between
both Christians and Stoics.84
As we have already suggested, the most profound commonality
between both systems is the unitive dimensions of pneuma important
to both systems. Paul’s pneuma joins believers to Christ in “one spirit”
such that “they are all one in Christ” (1 Cor 6:17; Gal 3:28). For the
Stoics, similarly, all that there is can be described as one because of the
pneuma that pervades everything. Paul can speak of the “fellowship
of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor 13:13) just as Seneca can speak in terms of
“natural fellowship of men with one another.”85 Nevertheless, searching
through the essential principles of each system of belief and practice,
even these common terms operate on dramatically divergent valences.
The most pressing problem with any theory of mutual compatibility as
it relates to pneuma is Paul’s clear identification of a “Spirit that you
have received from God” and “not a Spirit of the world” (1 Cor 2:12;
also 2 Cor 11:4). The Spirit in Paul is capable of being distinguished
from other spirits. In key places the identity of pneuma is controlled
by the risen Christ himself. Furthermore, the spirit in Paul is holy. The
concept of a “holy spirit” that demarcates its recipients as set apart
from a defiling world is essentially the antithesis of Stoic physics where
pneuma is the common element in all the cosmos.
Related to this discussion are the respective portrayals of the struc-
turing of the cosmos. As we have seen in multiple instances, pneuma
for the Stoics forms the structure of the universe and the structural
basis for its ethical philosophy. For them, all the world is “totally
pervaded by a pneuma through which the whole is held together.”86

83
Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A
Comparative Study of Ancient Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010),
209; also Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 2000), 45–­48, 293.
84
Rowe, One True Life, passim.
85
See § 3.2.5.
86
Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Mixtione 216.14–­16. See also Seneca, Nat.
2.6.2–4; also Philo, QG 2.28.
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 159

Importantly, in Paul’s letters, it is Christ himself and not the Spirit

“through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (1 Cor
8:6). In Colossians, this idea finds significant elaboration in the
expression of Christ as “firstborn of all creation” such that “all things
have been created through him and for him . . . and in him all things
hold together” (Col 1:18).87 Paul here appears to follow Jewish tradi-
tions of reading Genesis 1 with Proverbs 8. Just as in these traditions
Wisdom or Torah in their personified forms are described as present
and active in the structure and design of creation, in Pauline and
deutero-­Pauline constructions, that role is filled by Christ.88
Finally, Stoicism is constrained by a horizon of determinism that
runs conversely to Paulinism. For the Stoics, the pneuma signals an
eventual conflagration of fire and confirms an outlook of a world head-
ing inexorably to a recurring cycle of destruction.89 By contrast, for
Paul, the pneuma is a down payment for the redemption of a world
presently subjected to futility and suffering (Rom 8:19–­23) and des-
tined for fundamental change. Stoic determinism leaves little space for
hope toward a better world, but rather promotes the view that one
does the best with what they have in the role (and world) that they
find themselves within.90 Paul’s pneuma tugs in the opposite direction,
attesting to a hope that the present world will be remade into some-
thing genuinely new and qualitatively different (2 Cor 2:14–­18).
The foregoing indicates that Paul’s pneumatology operates on
largely incommensurable ideas, motivations, and principles compared
to those that occupy the Stoic system of thinking on the pneuma.

87
On the relation of ideas of Colossians 1 with Pauline the associated imag-
ery concerning union, covenant, and temple, see Grant Macaskill, “Union(s)
with Christ: Colossians 1:15–­20,” Ex Auditu 33 (2017): 92–­107.
88
See Macaskill, “Union(s) with Christ,” 102–­3. In rabbinic reflection, it
is Torah (similar to the tradition of Wisdom) that is described as being present
at God’s creation and described in terms of an ordering principle of all creation
(Gen. Rab. 1:1).
89
See the discussion of ekpyrosis §3.2.1.
90
On the Stoic idea that the world is determined by Fate and that each
person is to follow the roles that have been ordained, see, e.g., Long and Sedley,
Hellenistic Philosophers, 62A–­B; also, p. 392 (“What early Stoicism adds [to clas-
sical notions of fate] is that fate’s plan for you is thoroughly providential. This
world is the best possible, and you are in it to perform a very specific role”).
 160 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Stoicism involves a web of interconnected ideas working together

with the philosophical traditions in which Stoic practitioners saw
themselves a part of. These conversations and associated principles
are found nowhere in Paul’s letters. Where Stoic pneumatology
features theo-­cosmological principles that prioritize the unity of all
things, Paul regards the pneuma (or the Holy Spirit) as something
distinct from “the spirit of the world” and reserved for those who are
“in Christ” (Rom 8:23; 11:36). The pneumatologies of Paul and of
the Stoics are worlds apart.
But to establish these fundamental differences does not foreclose
the possibility of Pauline interaction with Stoic concepts and their
potential for further comparative study. None of these findings, for
instance, denies the likelihood that Paul not only was aware of but
also drew eclectically from Stoic thinking on the pneuma, adopting
surface-­level ideas of Stoic pneumatology without necessarily adopt-
ing its more systemic logic. Certainly nothing in our study denies the
possibility that Paul’s audience could have heard Paul’s reference to
a resurrection of spiritual bodies (1 Cor 15:44) and received them
in terms consonant with Stoic physics and the transformation of
humans into rarefied pneumatic ether. By the same token, the Stoic
idea that the pneuma unites and joins persons together may very well
have informed Paul’s notion of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. As
to whether this eclectic cherry-­picking of ideas accurately sums up the
phenomena of Paul’s pneuma discourse is, to my mind, impossible
to verify. The distinct genius of Paul’s pneuma was that it mediated
Christ’s presence with his people. With that being said, almost cer-
tainly listeners of Paul in Roman Corinth would have found some
affinity with Pauline and Stoic discourse based on the catchwords of
pneuma, oneness, and koinonia.

5.4. Conclusions
This chapter covered the third principal movement of our thesis,
refuting the assumption that the appeal to pneuma and “spiritual”
imagery in the context of Paul’s Jew-­gentile binary necessitates a
nonethnic transmutation of these differences into a new spiritual
entity. By contrast, Paul’s idea of unity appears to assume that Jewish
believers remain Jewish in their religious praxis and gentile believers
remain gentiles. They are bound in common worship of the same
One Spirit among Israel and God’s Churches 161

God, but their union retains important differences. Paul does indeed
strenuously oppose any efforts to impose the Jewish law on gentile
believers. But consistent with what we have seen in the Apostolic
Decree in Acts, even his polemical opposition to gentile law obser-
vance can be made consistent with the continued allowance of Jewish
believers to bear the burden of the Torah in accordance with the
ancestral traditions. One of the key flash points where Jewish loy-
alty to Torah might conflict with their loyalty to the Christian family
appears to relate with instances where Jewish and gentile believers are
joined together in commensality contexts (e.g., Gal 2:12–­14; 1 Cor
10:31–­33; Rom 14:20–­23; 15:7). In these instances, Paul cites the
example of Christ’s own self-­giving, and his own example of laying
down “rightful claims” afforded to him by the Torah for the sake of
the gospel of Christ (1 Cor 9:12). Consonant with this example, he
encourages differing members to engage in a mutual bearing of bur-
dens so that a supervening loyalty is owed to Christ and is resolved in
deference to others within the fellowship of believers. Paul summa-
rizes this principle throughout his letters as a manner of “walking in
love” (Rom 14:15; 1 Cor 8:1; 16:14; Gal 5:13) in service to others
in the believing community.
Instead of creating a newly transformed racial ethnicity for Chris-
tians that transcends their former Jewishness or non-­ Jewishness,
Paul’s inventive Spirit discourse in the Corinthian correspondence
hoped to establish a new and shared reconstruction of sacred space,
a space that Jews and gentiles inhabit together and that Paul portrays
in terms of “God’s building” built on the foundation of Christ, or
elsewhere simply “in Christ.” The leading prescriptive exhortations
toward these goals are then to “build up” this body-­temple in rela-
tional terms consistent with mutual support and love, and to do so
in accommodation of their differences, rather than in elimination of
them. In such an arrangement, the references to those “under the
Law” and those “outside the Law” (1 Cor 9:20–­23) seem to assume
a real-­world diversity in early Christian communities and the ongo-
ing continuity of practicing Jews as well as gentiles, who together, in
their own way, continue in “obeying the commandments of God”
(1 Cor 7:19).
 6
One Spirit in Pauline Studies

Were Paul truly intent on transcending the difference between

Jews and Gentiles, would he have so stressed the man known as the
father of the Jewish people?1

6.1. Introduction
This final substantive chapter will test this constructive thesis against
three major paradigms in Pauline scholarship. Our principal focus
here will be trained on the final element of our thesis, that Paul’s
imagery of the “temple of the Holy Spirit” does not spell a rejec-
tion of ethnic Israel, nor even a finding that the temple and its cove-
nant practices are now obsolete for Jewish Christians. In this chapter,
interaction with the secondary scholarship will not proceed like a
literature review but will insert its own arguments alongside these
approaches—­analyzing and exegeting the principal texts as we pro-
ceed. Furthermore, this section has no interest in relitigating in any
detail much of the broader controversies within Pauline scholarship,
such as justification by faith or the meaning of such key terms as righ-
teousness, works of the law, and so forth. Rather, we will continue

1
Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012),
157.

163
 164 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

our approach principally from the angle of how Spirit is used in

supporting these respective positions in potentially problematic or
unreflective ways.

6.2. The New Perspective on Paul, Spiritual Fulfillment, and

Supersessionism
The new perspective on Paul no longer needs an introduction.2 The
work of E. P. Sanders has been credited with bringing about a “para-
digm shift”3 in Pauline studies in correcting an outmoded mischarac-
terization of Second Temple Judaism as a legalistic religion and hence
Paul’s own response to Judaism in his writings. This study affirms
some of the basic premises of the new perspective, namely that Paul’s
missional theology was directed at the gentile mission, which sought
to establish churches that overcame social and ethnic tensions in the
Messiah. Some of the more fundamental problems of the new per-
spective are now well reported.4
In this section we will canvas how two of its leading proponents
(James Dunn and N. T. Wright) understand Israel’s relation to the
new churches in Christ and track how pneuma is used in the new
kind of unity Paul sought to bring between Jews and gentiles. Wright
finds that the “problem” of Israel and [her] regard for the law is that
“she is guilty not of ‘legalism’ or ‘works-­righteousness’ but of what
I call ‘national righteousness,’ the belief that fleshly Jewish descent

2
If necessary, the best sources remain the original articulations of its chief
proponents. E.g., E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of
Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 431–­555; James D. G. Dunn,
“The New Perspective on Paul” (1983), in The New Perspective on Paul (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 99–­120; see also Stephen Westerholm, “Justification
by Faith Is the Answer: What Is the Question?” CTQ 70 (2006): 197–­218.
3
See the helpful discussion by Jonathan A. Linebaugh, God, Grace, and Righ-
teousness in Wisdom of Solomon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversa-
tion (Boston: Brill, 2013), 2–­13; esp. p. 4, where Linebaugh questions the extent
to which Sanders’ achievement is a true “paradigm shift” in the Kuhnian sense.
4
On the deficits of “covenantal nomism” as articulated by Sanders, see
in particular John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2015), 151–­59, 562–­74. On the deficits of the new perspective understanding
of the “righteousness of God” as a consistent attribute of “covenant faithfulness”
to the exclusion of a distributive or communicative sense, see Charles Lee Irons,
The Righteousness of God: A Lexical Examination of the Covenant-­Faithfulness
Interpretation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 165

guarantees membership of God’s true covenant people.”5 This has

been characterized by Dunn as the “xenophobic strand of Judaism,”6
or “ethnocentrism,”7 or more broadly the failure to grasp God’s eth-
nically inclusive vision of God’s blessing to the nations. In correcting
Paul’s relationship with Judaism, the new perspective rescued Juda-
ism from a long-held negative portrayal as a religion of self-­righteous
boasting, but in recasting Judaism in terms of xenophobic exclusivity,
it nevertheless retained its role as a foil to Pauline Christianity.

6.2.1. Dunn and the Tension between Two Israels

Dunn presents a cogent reading of Romans 9–­11, one that many
Pauline interpreters share (at least in its overall shape).8 As a base-
line, Dunn makes clear that God’s future for Israel is not a redefined
Israel, but actual historical Israel, to which Paul himself belongs as a
member of the tribe of Benjamin.9 Dunn casts Paul’s view of Israel
in a framework of “eschatological tension” which divides Israel in
two: one Israel that is outside of God’s blessing due to unbelief and
the other Israel who is already a part of this covenant community. As
for the final denouement of Romans 11:26 and the salvation of “all
Israel,” Dunn concludes “there can be little doubt by ‘Israel’ here
Paul means the historic people of that name” (527). Dunn notes,
however, that this eschatological hope “focuses on the coming of ‘the
redeemer from Zion’ (11.26), on the coming of the Messiah, and not
on the Torah.”10 It is in this ending that the divisive tension of the two
Israels is finally resolved and transcended.

5
N. T. Wright, “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith,” TynBul 29
(1978): 65, also 67.
6
James D. G. Dunn, “Paul: Apostate or Apostle of Israel?” ZNW 89 (1998):
261.
7
A. Andrew Das, “Paul and Works of Obedience in Second Temple Juda-
ism: Romans 4:4–­5 as a ‘New Perspective’ Case Study,” CBQ 71, no. 4 (2009):
804.
8
See the categorization of the various views in Christopher Zoccali, “‘And
So All Israel Will Be Saved’: Competing Interpretations of Romans 11.26 in
Pauline Scholarship,” JSNT 30, no. 3 (2008): 289–­318.
9
James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2006), 519–­20 (“The continuity of Israel, of God’s people is unbroken.
The Israel of God’s call is still the Israel God called”).
10
Dunn, Theology, 528 (emphasis added).
 166 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Dunn’s reading of Romans 9–­11 stands in line with many read-

ings that regard Paul as reserving a future hope for some large-­scale
conversion to Israel’s Messiah upon the return of Christ.11 Nota-
bly, Paula Fredriksen’s recent volume on Paul, with some significant
differences, shares the larger horizon of this view concerning Paul’s
vision of the end of history: “Israel would so turn—­that is, they
would recognize Jesus as the son of David, the eschatological Lord
Messiah—­only when God enabled them.”12 She would, among other
things, correct any characterization that this would be a “conver-
sion” to another religious identity. The Jewish practice, in Paul’s view,
would undoubtedly change in that they would add gentiles to their
collective covenant constitution, but their ancestral traditions would
not change simply by virtue of the arrival of the Messiah.13
Dunn’s reading, while largely persuasive, makes several unwar-
ranted claims about the Jewish law.14 Under his scheme, the law
(which Paul declares holy and good [Rom 7:12]) is virtually evac-
uated from the picture. The only “law” that pertains now is the law
as redefined by Christ: “The law of faith; the law of the Spirit; and
the law of Christ.”15 Importantly, Dunn lays great store in the Spirit
for this wholesale change. Dunn recognizes, quite rightly, that Paul
uses the language of “walking by the Spirit” to name the Christian
pattern of life, which connects with the characteristically Jewish idea
of halakhah. He then proceeds to argue that in setting spirit against
the gramma (Rom 2:28–­29; 2 Cor 3:3, 6), there has been a “fulfill-
ment” of the law by the arrival of the Spirit.16 Dunn is also correct

11
For a compiled list of some of the scholars who line up under this view, see
Zoccali, “‘And So All Israel Will Be Saved,’” 290 (classified as the “eschatological
miracle”); also most recently, Matthew Thiessen, A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s
Herald to the Gentiles (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2023), 171–­79.
12
Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2017), 166.
13
Fredriksen, Paul, 167; also Brent Nongbri, “The Concept of Religion and
the Study of the Apostle Paul,” JJMJS, no. 2 (2015): 14n47.
14
For a similar objection along different lines, see Terence L. Donaldson,
Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s Convictional World (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1997), 341.
15
Dunn, Theology, 634.
16
Dunn, Theology, 644–­45 (describing this fulfillment in terms of the new
covenant promises in Jer 31:33 and Ezek 36:27, but understanding these
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 167

to observe that the language of “spirit” and “fulfilling the law” in

Romans 8:4 is closely related with the promise of the new covenant
(Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:27).17 But Dunn’s language of “fulfillment” as a
“summary way of speaking of the requirement of the law fulfilled by
those who walk by the Spirit” proves too much.18 Dunn reserves a
paraenetic function for the Mosaic law since “nothing that Paul says
indicates that for him Christ had brought emancipation from the law
as God’s rule of right and wrong, as God’s guidelines for conduct.”19
But why stop here? Nothing Paul says also indicates that Christ has
nullified the law as a gracious gift to Israel, to instruct, counsel, and
guide their steps. Presumably, Dunn reasons that to do so would
revert back to the “xenophobic strand” of Judaism and controvert
God’s program of inclusion. But this assumes that an agreement akin
to an Apostolic Decree (Acts 15) would have likewise destroyed unity
between Jew and gentiles in Christ; but precisely the converse is true
in the Acts narrative.

6.2.2. Wright: One Israel and One People of God

Whereas Dunn parses out two kinds of “Israel” in Romans 9–­11,
Wright insists on pressing all the references to Israel and “all Israel”
into only one group: the church of God.20 This is argued despite the
references to Israel as “kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom 9:3),
to the descendants of Abraham, and to himself from “the tribe of

promises not only to provide a power to obey the law in an unprecedented man-
ner, but to free it from the impermissible boasting and separation from others it
can easily create).
17
Dunn, Theology, 644–­45.
18
Dunn, Theology, 646–­47. On “fulfillment” of the law, see also John M. G.
Barclay, Obeying the Truth: Paul’s Ethics in Galatians (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1991), 135–­42; Thomas R. Schreiner, Law and Its Fulfillment (Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 1998), 145–­78.
19
Dunn, Theology, 645.
20
N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2013), 1144. Wright’s supersessionism has been criticized by a number of schol-
ars. The most strident of these has recently come from Joel Kaminsky and Mark
Reasoner, “The Meaning and Telos of Israel’s Election: An Interfaith Response
to N. T. Wright’s Reading of Paul,” HTR, no. 4 (2019): 444 (finding in Wright
“a de facto supersessionist position of the type that should give serious pause
to any reader of Paul [whether Christian, Jewish, or secular] living in the post-­
Shoah world”).
 168 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Benjamin” (Rom 11:1), which together indicate the historical people

of Israel. Wright denies these as bearing any indication of ethnic Israel
because of Paul’s dictum, “not all who are from Israel is Israel” (9:6).
So says Wright, “that distinction hangs over the rest of the discussion
like a puzzling question mark: who then are ‘Israel,’ if not all Abraham’s
physical children are to qualify?”21 The answer, for Wright, depends in
part on Paul’s language of fullness (11:12). Quoting Sanders, Wright
finds that God’s saving plan is that “the full number of both Jews and
Gentiles will be saved, and saved on the same basis.”22 Rather than
a “large-­scale last-­minute conversion of all Jews,” Wright understands
Paul as retaining only “the saveability of Jews within the continuing
purposes of God.”23 Since some of the Jewish people will be saved, so
the argument goes, the full number will be saved; and since this means
that God is faithful to his promise to save all the world through Abra-
ham’s seed (the Messiah), in this sense, “all Israel” is saved.24
A number of scholars have already addressed the problems of
Wright’s exegetical decisions with respect to Romans 9–­11.25 More
important for our purposes is Wright’s understanding of “fulfillment”
and the Spirit in his overall scheme. For Wright, both Israel’s cove-
nantal identity and the Jewish practices concerning temple and Torah
can no longer serve as a witness to God’s character and grace. For
him, these symbols are “revised” and redefined around the Spirit and
the Messiah. The “new family” of the Messiah people now take their
place as the “sole . . . visible symbol of the new worldview.”26 What

21
Wright, PFG, 1241.
22
Wright, PFG, 1245 (quoting E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish
People [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985], 196) (“[T]he mission to the Gentiles will
indirectly lead to the salvation of ‘all Israel’ [that is, ‘their fullness’]”).
23
Wright, PFG, 1251 (emphasis added).
24
See, e.g., Wright, PFG, 1412. Importantly, this larger argument fails to
grapple with Paul’s genuine anguish over Israel in Rom 9:2–­3.
25
Among the more important critiques, see Jonathan A. Linebaugh, “Not
the End: The History and Hope of the Unfailing Word in Romans 9–­11,” in God
and Israel: Providence and Purpose in Romans 9–­11, ed. Todd D. Still (Waco:
Baylor University Press, 2017), 141–­64; also John K. Goodrich, “Until the
Fullness of the Gentiles Comes In: A Critical Review of Recent Scholarship on
the Salvation of ‘All Israel’ (Romans 11:26),” JSPL 6, no. 1 (2016): 5–­32; and
Kaminsky and Reasoner, “Meaning and Telos.”
26
Wright, PFG, 368.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 169

is important for Wright is the function of the old symbols (which for
Wright presumably includes ancient Israel herself):
Paul’s point was not that there was anything wrong with
the original promise or symbol. Far from it. When you have
arrived at your destination, you switch off the engine and
park the car, not because it has not done its proper job but
because it has. It is eschatology, not religious superiority that
forms the key to Paul the apostle’s radical revision of the sym-
bolic world of Saul of Tarsus.27

Israel and its symbols of Torah and temple are regarded for their
function (having “done its proper job”). Wright insists that all
this is “deeply Jewish.” He writes that Paul has, “in the Messiah,
. . . discovered a new way, or perhaps we should say the new way, to
be Jewish. This, he would certainly have said, is what it means to be
‘Jewish’ in the ‘age to come,’ which is already present.”28
Under this scheme of “fulfillment” and redefinition, Wright avers
that with the Spirit there is a “new form of Torah-­observance” which
the Deuteronomic motif of covenant renewal and circumcision of the
heart had “been pointing to all along.”29 Pressed with the accusation
that this amounts to “an erasure of something called Jewish identity,”
Wright responds “this would have made no sense to Paul” (offering
supporting examples of a bride wishing to stay engaged, or someone
preferring candles to the daytime sun).30

27
Wright, PFG, 367. This analogy of the car having done its job speaks to
Wright’s functional ontology, which is a feature of his wider writings. Grind-
heim’s critique of Wright’s Rom 9–­11 scheme concerns the fact that in emphasiz-
ing Israel’s vocation (and God’s eventual fulfillment of that intended plan to save
the world), he fails to recognize the unconditioned nature of God’s saving elec-
tion: “God did not choose his bride to save the world, but to love her.” Sigurd
Grindheim, “Election and the Role of Israel,” in God and the Faithfulness of Paul:
A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright, ed. Michael F.
Bird, Christoph Heilig, and J. Thomas Hewitt (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015),
344. Wright appears to see no other way to understand ethnic Israel outside of
its vocation as a light to the gentiles. E.g., PFG, 810–­11. For Wright, historical
Israel is only what historical Israel does for the world.
28
Wright, PFG, 545.
29
Wright, PFG, 1433.
30
Wright, PFG, 1433.
 170 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

As was the case with Dunn (though to a higher degree), “fulfill-

ment” is understood to fully redefine without remainder the whole
matter of the temple, its sacred apparatus, the ancestral traditions,
the holy feasts, and even the identity of Israel as the people of God.
Crucially, the “Spirit” is named as that which redraws all these around
the Messiah and thus brings about “the new way to be Jewish.” But
there is very little in either Dunn or Wright that discusses what fulfill-
ment actually means with respect to the law and why any of the refer-
ences to πλήροω and its cognates indicate that Jewish believers are to
fully give up the ancestral traditions and customs. The law-­fulfillment
passages are not as numerous as one might expect, spanning only
Romans and Galatians: Romans 8:4; 13:8, 10; Galatians 6:2. Three of
the four references speak of “fulfilling” the law by virtue of the love
command (or bearing one’s burdens). Romans 8:4 provides the only
reference to the Spirit and a form of “walking according to the Spirit”
in the context of the “righteous requirement of the law . . . fulfilled
in [them].” But this verse alone cannot support their arguments that
Jewish adherence to Torah is now wholly done away with.

6.3. Paul within Judaism and the Ethnic Pneuma

As is the case with the new perspective, scholars subscribing to the
“Paul-­within-­Judaism” view operate within a significant margin of
diversity.31 What unites them broadly is the shared conviction that
Paul’s calling as apostle to the gentiles did not represent any mean-
ingful break from Judaism, but rather operated within and for the
sake of the Judaism from which it emerged.32 In this regard, Paul

31
For an overview of the main distinctives of this perspective and an acknowl-
edgment of its diversity, see Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., Paul
within Judaism: Restoring the First-­Century Context to the Apostle (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2015), 1, 6. See also Michael Bird, Ruben A. Bühner, Jörg Frey, and
Brian Rosner, eds., Paul within Judaism: Perspectives on Paul and Jewish Identity
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2023).
32
The term “Judaism” (or Ioudaismos) is fraught in the secondary literature, as
is untangling the proper valency for the term “Jew/Judean” (Ioudaioi). In certain
contexts, the term is handled quite imprecisely as signifying an identifiable religion
over against the nascent Christian religion. The better handling of these terms in
their historical Second Temple contexts recognizes that Ioudaismos lacks a distinctly
religious component separable from aspects of ethnicity (ancestry and custom) and
location (territory and region). Such distinct religious understandings of the term
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 171

was not a “convert” who “invented Christian theology,”33 “planting

(‘Christian’) ‘churches’ that were unaffiliated with, and even in open
conflict with Jewish synagogues.”34 Important to many proponents
of this view is the idea that Paul wrote exclusively to gentile ekklesiai,
and accordingly, his letters speak to concerns only of gentile believ-
ers in Christ.35 Beyond this, the various positions begin to diversify.
On the Sonderweg side of the spectrum (following the findings of
Lloyd Gaston and John Gager), Paul’s labor for the gospel was only
for gentiles alone and hence the call for faith in Jesus the Messiah
has no bearing upon the Jewish people, who already belong as cove-
nant members, children of Abraham.36 In the other direction, mov-
ing away from a two-­covenant scheme, are scholars who recognize
Paul as leaving space for a future realization of Israel’s belief in Jesus
as Messiah but permit some interregnum of faithful Jewish praxis.37
In between these poles, most of the notable scholars writing within

over against Christianity are likely much later developments; so Daniel Boyarin,
Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-­Christianity (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 11. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jew-
ishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2001); and Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems
of Categorization in Ancient History,” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–­512.
33
Paula Fredriksen, “Review: Paul and the Faithfulness of God,” CBQ 77,
no. 2 (2015): 387.
34
Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 5.
35
E.g., Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2016), 11 (“These claims to have divine authority to preach to
gentiles suggest that he wrote primarily, perhaps even exclusively, for gentiles-­in-­
Christ. Therefore, when Paul quotes Jewish scriptures or comments on the
Jewish law, he does so in relation to his mission to non-­Jews”). See also the elab-
oration of these ideas in Rafael Rodriguez and Matthew Thiessen, The So-­Called
Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016).
36
E.g., Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (1987; repr., Eugene, Ore.: Wipf
& Stock, 2006); John G. Gager, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2002).
37
Fredriksen, Paul, 165–­66 (finding that despite misunderstanding the Law’s
purpose as it pertains to Christ, Israel “would indeed recognize Jesus as the son
of David, the eschatological Lord Messiah—­only when God enabled them” after
the fullness of the nations [Rom 11.25]). See also Kathy Ehrensperger, Paul at
the Crossroads of Cultures (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 2–­8 (highlighting Paul’s
efforts with Jerusalem as signaling a concerted effort to keep his mission firmly
tethered to Jerusalem and its temple).
 172 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

this view characterize Paul’s ministry as orchestrating a solution for

gentiles in particular, while not encompassing in his extant writings a
worldwide justifying solution for all humanity.38
What all Paul-­within-­Judaism scholars share is their critique of the
new perspective.39 While they affirm with the new perspective that
Judaism is as much a religion of grace as the early Jesus movement,
they criticize it for retaining a form of Christian “universalism,” which
negatively portrays Judaism as marked by “nationalism,” “exclusiv-
ism,” and hence “narrowness,” which only finds its spiritualized, uni-
versalizing liberation in the gospel of Christian grace.40 In forwarding
this critique, one of the key distinctives of this scholarship is a move
toward elucidating ethnicity as a means by which Paul establishes his
ekklesiai and constructs their distinctive identity in Christ.41 Rather

38
E.g., Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship
and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007),
149–­51.
39
This is evident by the prefatory material in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul
within Judaism.
40
E.g., Hodge, If Sons, 7–­9; also Denise Kimber Buell and Caroline Johnson
Hodge, “The Politics of Interpretation: The Rhetoric of Race and Ethnicity in
Paul,” JBL 123 (2004): 235–­51.
41
The work of Buell and Hodge is representative of this approach among
others. On the relation between Paul within Judaism, identity theory, and eth-
nicity, see in particular Kathy Ehrensperger, “Narratives of Belonging: The Role
of Paul’s Genealogical Reasoning,” Early Christianity 8, no. 3 (2017): 373–­92;
Paula Fredriksen, “How Jewish Is God? Divine Ethnicity in Paul’s Theology,”
JBL 137, no. 1 (2018): 193–­212; J. Brian Tucker, Remain in Your Calling: Paul
and the Continuation of Social Identities in 1 Corinthians (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf
& Stock, 2011); also J. Brian Tucker, “Did Paul Create Christian Identity?”
Criswell Theological Review 8, no. 1 (2010): 35–­51. On the contested nature
of “identity” in biblical studies, cf. Judith Lieu, Christian Identity in the Jewish
and Graeco-­Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) (resisting
any broad sense of a shared Christian identity among the earliest Jesus followers
beyond what can be established from their texts) with Bengt Holmberg, “Under-
standing the First Hundred Years of Christian Identity,” in Exploring Early Chris-
tian Identity, ed. Bengt Holmberg (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) (retrieving
the use of identity from a particular historical pessimism as a valid category for
describing the practices and beliefs of the first “Christians”). On ethnicity and
identity in biblical studies more broadly, see now Katherine M. Hockey and
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 173

than transcend or relativize ethnic difference, it is urged instead that

Paul’s ministry strategy embraces ethnic identity and draws upon it
among other forms of social patterns to construct collective identities
of the churches as a coordinated people alongside Israel.42 From this
approach, even those areas which have been traditionally analyzed in
Pauline studies as theological categories, both pneuma and theos, are
now analyzed more directly in terms of ethnicity and identity as well.43
Perhaps the most salient contribution of this group of scholar-
ship is its insistence that Paul’s eschatological vision was explicitly
in line with the prophetic texts that viewed the ethnē to join God’s
people in Jerusalem precisely as ethnē (cf. Isa 2:2–­3; 25:6; 60:6–­9;
Zech 8:21–­23). In this view, the “inclusion” of gentiles is consis-
tently understood as taking for granted the perdurance of Israel as
such. This idea finds strong support in Jewish apocalyptic literature.44
Fredriksen rightly insists that for the Isaianic vision to be realized in
Paul’s gentile mission, “not only must eschatological gentiles remain

David G. Horrell, eds., Ethnicity, Race, Religion: Identities and Ideologies in

Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and in Modern Biblical Interpretation (New
York: T&T Clark, 2018); and most recently David G. Horrell, Ethnicity and
Inclusion: Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Constructions of Jewish and Christian
Identities (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020).
42
E.g., Hodge, If Sons, 4–­5 and 134.
43
E.g., Hodge, If Sons, 132 (“‘In Christ’ is an ethnic designation”). The
ethnic relation of deities with their worshipping communities (the idea that “the
gods run in the blood” in antiquity) has been a feature of Fredriksen’s writings on
Paul and has been developed in her recent When Christians Were Jews: The First
Generation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018); also Fredriksen, “How
Jewish Is God?”
44
Kathy Ehrensperger, “The Pauline Ἐκκλησίαι and Images of Community
in Enoch Traditions,” in Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Second
Temple Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and Carlos A. Segovia (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2016), 183–­218; also Matthew Thiessen, “Paul, the Animal Apoca-
lypse, and Abraham’s Gentile Seed,” in The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in
Honor of Joel Marcus, ed. Lori Baron, Jill Hicks-­Keeton, and Matthew Thiessen
(Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018), 68–­69.
 174 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

gentiles: so too Israel must remain Israel, that family group, God’s
‘sons’ and Paul’s blood brothers, united by the covenants, the law, the
temple cult, the promises, the patriarchs.”45

6.3.1. The Spirit of the Gentiles in Paul within Judaism (Hodge and
Thiessen)
Looking more closely at the particular pneumatology within this
group of scholarship, the works of Caroline Johnson Hodge and
Matthew Thiessen represent the most prominent contributions to
date.46 Hodge’s project, preceding Thiessen, and following the
theoretical groundwork laid out by Denise Kimber Buell, leans on
both the fixity and fluidity of ethnic identity as an avenue for deeper
appreciation of Paul’s kinship language and his language concerning
pneuma. More than simply fixed anchors of identity, kinship and eth-
nicity are understood across time and culture as reference points that
can be adapted, “nested,” and negotiated in order to form adaptive
and malleable identities both socially and personally.47 In the ancient
world, as today, people are capable of “situational ethnicity” and
“double discursive competence” to shift from multiple identities and

45
Fredriksen, Paul, 165.
46
To these scholars, we should also add the contributions concerning
πνεῦμα from Stanley K. Stowers, “What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?”
in Redefining First-­Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of
Ed Parish Sanders, ed. Fabian E. Udoh, Susannah Heschel, Mark Chancey, and
Gregory Tatum (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), 352–­71;
and Kathy Ehrensperger, “Between Polis, Oikos, and Ekklesia: The Challenge of
Negotiating the Spirit World (1 Cor 12:1–­11),” in The First Urban Churches 2:
Roman Corinth, ed. James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2016), 105–­32. The studies from Hodge and Thiessen are
not representative of the entire Paul-­within-­Judaism paradigm, but they are the
most fully articulated pneumatological studies from within this perspective.
47
Hodge, If Sons, 119. On the usefulness of ethnicity as a category that
acquires purchase on Pauline interpretation, see Simon Butticaz, “Vers une
Anthropologie universelle? La crise galate: Fragile gestion de l’ethnicité Juive,”
NTS 61 (2015): 505–­24 (contending that the category of “ethnicity” does
not track Paul’s own discourse in Galatians, who himself searches for catego-
ries beyond ethnicity in terms of “new creation”); for similar criticism of the
“slipperiness” of ethnic discourse in this context, see John M. G. Barclay, “An
Identity Received from God: The Theological Configuration of Paul’s Kinship
Discourse,” Early Christianity 8, no. 3 (2017): 354–­72.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 175

negotiate various essentializing claims.48 Hodge portrays Paul as an

“entrepreneur of identity”49 that seeks to accommodate gentile inclu-
sion into God’s Abrahamic family, using the discourse of ethnicity as
pedagogical strategy in furtherance of his theological aims. Hodge
emphasizes the manner in which the status of kinship and ethnicity
in the ancient world could be established either by blood ties (or at
least by religious or ceremonial sanction, such as adoption) or by
imagined shared practice (a distinction ethnographers speak in terms
of monothetic and polythetic constructions of ethnicity).50 For these
reasons, Paul can use ideas like ethnicity and kinship “for drawing and
redrawing boundaries between people.”51
To this end, Hodge sets out to defend her primary thesis that
for Paul, kinship and ethnicity are not mere metaphors for lineage,
family, and paternity but are “salient categories” for joining gentiles
to Israel’s God.52 For Hodge, both the problem and the solution are
described primarily in ethnic terms: “If oppositional ethnic construc-
tion (Jews/non-­Jews) defines the problem, aggregative ethnic con-
struction (gentiles-­in-­Christ linked to Israel) defines the solution.”53
In other words, the solution to the problem is “kinship creation,” for
which adoption and baptism serve as prime metaphors to broker this
new kind of kinship and so bridge the ethnic gap between Jew and
gentiles.

48
See Irad Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge,
Mass.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001); for a fine discussion of ethnic mallea-
bility and identity discourse in the study of Paul specifically, see Cavan W. Con-
cannon, “When You Were Gentiles”: Specters of Ethnicity in Roman Corinth and
Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014);
on ethnicity more broadly, see John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith, eds.,
Ethnicity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
49
Hodge borrows this phrase from Philip Esler’s work on identity. Philip
Francis Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Letter
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 38.
50
E.g., Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 1–­18. Categories of “Greekness”
and being a “barbarian” could be established by appeals to behavior (over gene-
alogical descent). Hodge, If Sons, 34–­35.
51
Hodge, If Sons, 48.
52
Hodge, If Sons, 4.
53
Hodge, If Sons, 67.
 176 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Consequently, for Hodge, pneuma functions in the primary role

of achieving this negotiated ethnic identity—­it is the very means
by which gentiles through adoption and baptism are legitimated
as sons of Abraham on a parallel standing with ethnic Israel. The
pneuma “is crucial to the process,” says Hodge, as “it grants the
gentiles a new ancestry, a new kinship with the God of Israel.”54
This solution for Paul relies on the “logic of shared blood” as a
means to creatively link gentiles into Abraham’s lineage “through
the spirit.”55 The “spirit provides divine legitimation,” which as “the
divine (and also ‘physical’) agent links the gentiles to Christ.”56 The
language of kinship is in this regard hardly “fictive” in the sense
that it implies something “less real, less ‘natural’ than other kinds
of kinship” because with pneuma, Paul is accomplishing rhetorical
work that takes seriously the manner in which society can construct
kinship in powerful, and therefore very real, ways.57
Hodge relies on ethnic categories to recharacterize central Pau-
line motifs. Faith (pistis), she argues, “is about ancestry,”58 lean-
ing on the prepositional phrase ἐκ πιστοῦ (Gal 3:7) as signaling
that gentiles descend from Abraham “from faith.” Even Paul’s “in
Christ” terminology is deemed an “ethnic designation” in Hodge’s
understanding—­union with Christ empowers a kind of obedience
to the law that is consistent with Jewish ethnicity, not transcendent
of it.59 Instead of any kind of transcendent group, Hodge portrays
a Pauline solution whereby “Christ-­following gentiles are affiliated
with Israel—­sharing some characteristics but retaining a necessary
separateness—­in an arrangement that needs to last only until Christ’s
return” whereby Jews and gentiles are understood in the interim to
share “the same founding ancestor and belong[] to the same God,
but not collapsed into one group.”60

54
Hodge, If Sons, 72.
55
Hodge, If Sons, 26.
56
Hodge, If Sons, 27, 76. As will be argued, it is unclear what “kinship to
God” actually accomplishes in this framework, since the principal problem has
already been framed in terms of Abrahamic kinship.
57
Hodge, If Sons, 15–­16.
58
Hodge, If Sons, 84.
59
See in particular Hodge, If Sons, 132–­33.
60
Hodge, If Sons, 117; also 77.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 177

Matthew Thiessen’s recent work builds upon Hodge while at

the same time elaborating significantly on the historical background
informing Paul’s view of the pneuma. Consistent with his predeces-
sors, Thiessen frames the “gentile problem” primarily as a matter of
genealogy. Arguing chiefly from the evidence of Galatians, Thiessen’s
principal argument is that Paul understood God’s promise of blessing
to Abraham as a promise of the pneuma to both Abraham and his
seed.61 Tracing the logic of Galatians 3–­4, if only sons of Abraham are
entitled to receive the inherited blessing, there emerges a “genealog-
ical divide” between Jew and gentile, such that the “only solution to
the gentile problem” was for God himself to overcome this gap “by
rewriting gentile genealogy so that they could become Abrahamic
seed.”62 Stated another way, “if gentiles want to receive the promises
and inheritance of Abraham, then they need to become genealogi-
cally related to him. They need to become his sons.”63 The innovative
solution for Paul is the spirit—­the “pneuma of Christ.” Gentiles-­in-­
Christ “remain flesh-­and-­blood gentiles,” and any attempt to become
the “seed of Abraham” by means of Jewish law, in Thiessen’s view,
“would be on par with undergoing cosmetic surgery, creating the
appearance of kinship, without effecting any genealogical change.”64
The crucial identity change, for Thiessen, comes from pneuma: “Gen-
tiles who have received this pneuma become both Abraham’s son and
his seed. They are truly descended from Abraham himself now—­not
sarkically, but pneumatically.”65
Thiessen takes for granted that Paul follows Stoic thinking about
pneuma in emphasizing a material, and a predominantly genealogi-
cal view of the pneuma which Paul and his readers would take up in
thinking through their new identity as gentiles-­in-­Christ. So Thiessen:
“Aided by the fundamental tenets of Stoic physics, Paul connects gen-
tiles to Abraham through the pneuma of Abraham’s seed, Christ.”66

61
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 159–­60.
62
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 152.
63
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 128.
64
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 121.
65
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 128.
66
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 118. On the connection of πνεῦμα and sperm
in Greco-­Roman antiquity and its possible inroads to Pauline pneumatology, see
Jeremy W. Barrier, “Jesus’ Breath: A Physiological Analysis of Πνεῦμα within
 178 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Stoic thinking, according to this thesis, informs a “popular ontology in

the ancient world” in which the pneuma pervades the cosmos and binds
it together “toward the interconnectedness (or ‘sympathy,’ συμπάθεια)
of the entire universe.”67 Thiessen adopts the thesis that Paul’s por-
trayal of the pneuma “coincide[s] quite closely with Stoic conceptions
of both pneuma and krasis” whereby gentile believers are joined to
Christ by the substance mixture of receiving the “pneuma of Christ.”68
Thiessen grants that Paul’s view of the pneuma was “indebted to Jew-
ish scriptures,” but insists that Paul and his contemporaries nonetheless
would have received and interpreted these scriptural principles through
Stoic ways of understanding the cosmos.69
The last and most inventive move of Thiessen’s overall thesis con-
cerns his claim that Paul’s use of the motif that Abraham’s descen-
dants would be “like the stars” (i.e., Gen 15:5 and 22:17) would
have registered as a reference to the pneumatic, astral-­like quality of
angelic or divine beings for Paul and his hearers (both Jewish and
gentile). Drawing from Neoplatonic and predominantly Stoic phys-
ics, Thiessen canvasses a long history of attributing the stars to divine
or semidivine beings which are infused with pneuma.70 In assum-
ing that Paul and his interlocutors would receive the Abrahamic
story of his descendants as stars not only in terms of numerosity,
but also in terms of a quality—­an astral-­pneumatic, and hence divine

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” JSNT 37, no. 2 (2014): 115–­38. See also the
discussion of pneuma and genealogy in § 6.3.3.
67
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 116.
68
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 111–­18. See § 3.2.3.
69
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 114 (citing for support the claim from N. T.
Wright that Paul supposed his hearers would receive Paul’s message of the
pneuma and the re-­creation of the cosmos “in the region of the Stoic develop-
ment of Plato’s thought”). See Wright, PFG, 232.
70
See Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 143–­60. The majority of the evidence sup-
porting this comes from Greek philosophers ranging from Plato and Aristotle
to Stoic writings from Posidinus, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, among others. Cf.
Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea (Oxford: Clar-
endon Press, 1994) (“Aside from the Epicureans, all the major philosophical
schools in the Hellenistic era believed in the divinity of the stars”). On the Jewish
side, the evidence is less convincing, relying primarily on the semantic associa-
tions of angelic beings with pneuma (e.g., Jub. 2.2; 15.31; 1 En. 15.4–­6; 1QM
13.10–­12).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 179

transformation—­Thiessen attempts to track Paul’s efforts to reframe

the horizon of gentile identity away from immoral, godless idol-­
worshippers toward a real transformation of virtue and even celestial,
pneumatic life enabled by the pneuma of Christ.71 From this per-
spective, passages such as 1 Corinthians 15 (and likewise Philippians
2:15 with its reference to believers “shining as stars”) are properly
understood as portraying a material, pneumatic transformation that
moves from an earthly body (σῶμα ψυχικόν, 1 Cor 15:44) to a spir-
itual body (σῶμα πνευματικόν, 1 Cor 15:44, 46). This line of argu-
ment gestures toward deification or theosis in Paul’s soteriology so
that gentiles-­in-­Christ, though once outside of the blessing to Abra-
ham, are now brought in as the “seed” insofar as they have received
the promise of becoming like the stars and sharing in indestructible,
divine life.72

6.3.2. Does the Pneuma Have an Ethnicity?

Taken together, these studies have provided significant counterweight
to a reading of Paul that has too long assumed that the creation of
Christian communities in the Spirit signals the end of Jewish (and
gentile) obedience to the law. As we have already seen from the pre-
vious chapters, this study stands in large agreement with many points
made from this school of thought. With this group of scholars, I agree
that Paul conceived of a coordinated, yet distinct unity of gentiles and
Israel together that did not collapse into one group. Furthermore,
Paul expected this unity to remain until a final eschatological reality

71
Of the problems on the merits that can be identified regarding Thiessen’s
“star theory” of pneuma, the primary concern is that it assumes Paul placed
significant store in the implied promise that the sons of Abraham would be physi-
cally like the stars. Not only does this argument assume Paul alludes to this aspect
of the promise in his writings (he does not), but it also assumes that Paul inter-
prets the star language to appeal to the qualitative and material aspect of stars,
rather than simply their numerosity. Since the original promise in Gen 17 and
22 combines the innumerable quantity of the stars with the similar numerosity
of the grains of sand, Thiessen’s arguments fail to persuade particularly at the
textual level. Furthermore, he acknowledges that “rabbinic literature contains
no evidence that later rabbis read Gen 15:5 or 22:16–­18 to imply a qualitative
comparison” (139).
72
On this larger argument, see Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 154–­60.
 180 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

presented itself.73 The point of disagreement concerns how pneuma

is used in furthering this overall portrait of Paul within Judaism. The
first problem relates with the inadequacy of ethnicity to explain the
wide range of Paul’s spiritual language. However we understand the
baptism-­unity formulas of Galatians 3 and 1 Corinthians 12, it is
clear that when the baptizand is clothed with Christ in “one Spirit”
and declared neither Jew nor gentile, but affirmed as one in Christ,
the conceptual categories required to map this language must reach
beyond human categories of genetics and ethnicity.74 In fact, what-
ever kind of identity emerges out of spirit baptism, it is ethnicity that
is specifically denied in naming the newly baptized member. Ethnicity
and genealogy are indeed important strands in Paul’s overall identity
language (as the next section will address), but they cannot bear the
weight that Hodge and Thiessen seek to place upon them in explain-
ing Paul’s pneuma and the so-­called genealogy of faith.
As we have seen, these scholars go so far as to connect the pneuma
with (admittedly heuristic) biogenetic concepts such as shared blood,
gene therapy, and even DNA.75 In essentializing the “spirit” as a
matter of ethnicity, they press Paul’s language of spiritual union with
Christ (or Paul’s ubiquitous “in Christ” terminology) in terms reduc-
ible to ethnic or other human categories. Importantly, such a move
cuts sharply against the logic of Paul’s writings, not least Romans
9–­11. There Paul indicates that the status of the “children” that are
reckoned by God does not depend on human will (τοῦ θελοντος)
or advancement (τοῦ τρέχοντος) or birth order, but on the mercy
of God (Rom 9:16). The resulting kinship is not a third race, nor
a proxy for bloodlines on par with Abrahamic patrilineage. Instead,
this kinship born kata pneuma is a gift of divine grace that requires

73
Hodge, If Sons, 77, 117; and Fredriksen, Paul, 164–­65.
74
See Barclay, “Identity,” 370 (“In discourse limited by anthropological or
political tools of analysis, ethnicities may be represented as ‘primordial’ [natu-
ral, given and inherited] or as ‘processural’ [socially constructed and rhetori-
cally negotiated], or as a subtle mixture of the two. . . . What this analysis [of
ethnicity] cannot handle [except as a mythological construct] is the specifically
theological forms of identity evoked in the Pauline letters, which represent the
believers’ identity as something received from outside human agency”).
75
E.g., Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 117; Hodge, If Sons, 76.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 181

characterization in new terms, without contingency to existing cat-

egories of birthright, human striving, or status—­but rather on the
register of what Paul elsewhere deems “new creation.”76

6.3.3. Does the Pneuma Establish Sonship?

Second, and perhaps more problematic, Hodge and Thiessen claim
that kinship is grounded or constituted by the pneuma itself.77 These
arguments appear to misread Paul’s use of pneuma, confusing the
collocation of pneuma and kinship in his writings with its material or
ontological basis. From an exegetical standpoint, Paul falls short of
describing the pneuma as itself constitutive of “sonship.” The promise
in Galatians may concern Abraham and his “seed,” but crucially, the
pneuma is not identified as itself the “seed.” Furthermore, in Paul’s
letters the pneuma is never presented as the means by which believers
become “sons.” Instead, Paul invariably inserts a degree of distance
that stops short of linking pneuma and filial kinship. Believers receive
the spirit of the Son (πνεῦμα τοῦ υἱοῦ) “because we are sons” (ὅτι
δε ἐστε υἱοί) (Gal 4:6).78 However that causal relationship denoted
by ὅτι functions logically in this sentence, the status of sonship is
somehow prior to or noncontingent on the reception of the pneuma.
In Galatians, believers are said to receive adoption, not because they
receive the Spirit, but because “God sent his son in order to redeem
those under the law” (Gal 4:5). Likewise, in Romans 8, believers do
not receive adoption simpliciter, but the “spirit of adoption,” with
the added commentary that the spirit itself testifies with their spirit
that they are children of God (Rom 8:16). The logic of these degrees
of separation mediated by God’s sending of the “Son” or the “Spirit

76
2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; Cf. Barclay, Gift, 520–­61 (elucidating the “creative”
shape of the “children of God” in Rom 9–­11).
77
“The spirit, or pneuma,” says Hodge, “grants the gentiles a new ances-
try, a new kinship with the God of Israel.” Hodge, If Sons, 72. “The gift of
the pneuma,” Thiessen likewise concludes, “precisely because it is the pneuma
of Abraham’s seed, Christ, brings gentiles into a genealogical relationship with
Abraham himself.”
78
The logical function of ὅτι involves a complex exegetical discussion that
must be deferred. It suffices at this juncture that the status of sonship is preceded
by the sending of the pneuma.
 182 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

of the Son” forecloses any direct line connecting pneuma to sonship

(whether Abrahamic or divine), and together they form a charac-
teristic pattern of Paul’s language concerning kinship identity. The
pneuma relates to kinship in ways that are at every turn refracted
by and conditioned upon the believer’s union with Christ and by
Christ’s own relationship to God the Father as “Son.”
Furthermore, both Hodge’s and Thiessen’s accounting of the
“gentile problem” do not seem to adequately grapple with Paul’s
more fundamental category of “children of God.” In other words,
Hodge and Thiessen present Abrahamic sonship as the primary prob-
lem to resolve in Paul’s mission. Beyond linking gentiles to Abra-
hamic patrilineage, however, Paul also operates with a more basic
group of sonship which identifies God himself as their father: “Scrip-
ture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in
Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. . . . For in Christ
Jesus, you are all sons of God, through faith” (Gal 3:22, 26). Hodge
and Thiessen seem to conflate Abrahamic sonship with divine son-
ship, but the logic does not work in this direction.
Paul’s invocation of Abraham is fraught with the complication
that he fathers divergent lineages—­a flexibility which Paul certainly
exploits in both Galatians and Romans. He fathers the circumcised
as well as the uncircumcised (Rom 4:11–­12); he fathered Ishmael as
well as Isaac and the groups each can flexibly represent (Gal 4:22).
Of all the things that Abraham is described as in Galatians, it must
be noted that he is not portrayed as “a son” or a “child of God”—­
the very status Paul wants to ascribe to the Galatians. It is Isaac,
rather, who is the child born according to the Spirit (κατὰ πνεῦμα)
(Gal 4:29), and whom believers are identified with as “children of
the promise” (Gal 4:28). Accordingly, Abraham is not the only para-
digm for believers in Christ in Galatians 3—­Isaac also. Like Abraham,
believers in Christ are righteous not by works of the law, but by faith
in God. But like Isaac, the same believers are children of the promise,
who are born according to the spirit as a gift of God—­a miracle that
cannot be determined on the basis of human decision or ability, but
from God who raises the dead (Rom 4:18–­24). The controlling cat-
egory in Paul’s Abrahamic discourse, then, is not simply how gentiles
can be made into sons of Abraham. That designation is important as
it establishes a kinship with Israel. Rather, the more essential cate-
gory for Paul concerns the identity of the “sons of God” and how all
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 183

people (both Jews and gentiles) might be joined to this family. The
accounts of Hodge and Thiessen are incomplete insofar as they do
not properly account for how Paul uses both Abraham and Isaac as
exemplars to the way God reckons his children based, not on ethnic
genealogy, but on the “promise” concerning Christ.
In fairness, Thiessen’s argument of the pneuma, as we have reviewed,
is not wholly ethnic but also includes an account of Paul’s view of divine
kinship by connecting Abrahamic descent with a divinizing pneuma.79
As I understand him, the christological development of his thesis con-
cerning pneumatic transformation still depends on the genealogical
transformation of receiving the pneumatic seed of Abraham, which
is also, he argues, the seed of Christ. Insofar as Thiessen’s argument
depends on a particular understanding of the promise to Abraham as
referring to his offspring to become “as the stars” in terms indicating
their pneumatic ontology, this study disagrees and presents a decidedly
different account of the constitution of Abrahamic and divine sonship
which proceeds along the throughlines of faith, the promises of God,
and the believer’s union to Christ by means of the Spirit. Nevertheless,
Thiessen may well report accurately that Paul’s hearers would have often
understood his pneumatic imagery in terms resonant with Stoic physics
and ontology. As this study has trained its focus on the cultic dimensions
of Paul’s pneuma, nothing in this study refutes the finding that particular
Pauline passages (e.g., 1 Cor 15:44, and its reference to a resurrection
of a spiritual body) were retrieved by Paul’s hearers in terms of an onto-
logical necessity for the transformation of people toward more heav-
enly, rarefied, and indeed, pneumatic substances. The more basic point
of contention concerns whether Paul regards the pneuma as effecting
a substantive genealogical transformation of gentiles into children of
Abraham and through him, pneumatic children of God in Christ.
In Pauline terms, rather than establishing or constituting kinship
or ethnic ties, I have argued that the pneuma is more precisely indi-
cated as a means by which believers are united to “the Son” and in turn
draw their familial status derivatively from that union.80 This pneuma

79
See the discussion in § 6.3.1. See in particular Thiessen, Gentile Problem,
154–­60.
80
Grant Macaskill, “Incarnational Ontology and the Theology of Partic-
ipation,” in “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and
 184 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

is received on a shared pattern of “faith” demonstrated archetypically

in Abraham’s trust in God’s promise of the seemingly impossible birth
of Isaac. In Pauline terms, “faith,” more than pneuma, is more suit-
ably the shared trait of family resemblance and its concomitant basis
for kinship between Jewish and gentile believers.

6.3.4. Is There a Pneuma for Israel Kata Sarka?

Finally, the characterization of the pneuma in terms of a gentile
solution to a specifically gentile problem seems to ignore the role
of the “Spirit” within ethnic Israel’s own prophesied restoration.
In an important section, Thiessen classifies Paul’s understanding of
humanity and their connection to the pneuma into the following
four categories:
(1) Sarkic Jews who have Christ’s pneuma
(2) Sarkic Jews who lack Christ’s pneuma
(3) Sarkic gentiles who have Christ’s pneuma
(4) Sarkic gentiles who lack Christ’s pneuma81
Thiessen recognizes, in dissension with the two-­covenant (Sonder-
weg) programs of Gaston and Gager, that “Paul thinks that Jews need
this good news about Christ Jesus as much as gentiles do.”82 Thiessen
concludes that Paul thinks that Jews need this gospel “for somewhat
different reasons than gentiles do” and because Paul’s mission was
to the gentiles, he “spends very little time explicating what prob-
lem Jews face that requires this gospel of Jesus Christ.”83 In other
words, we cannot know what Paul thinks about pneuma for ethnic
Jews because Paul does not write to them. It is here where Thiessen
lays tremendous store in the argument that Paul writes exclusively
to gentiles in his letters, thereby mooting the possibility that Paul’s

Participation, ed Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and Constantine R.

Campbell (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 98 (“The Sonly status of Jesus
is determinative for the adoption of those who receive his Spirit, but it is
nowhere represented itself as being constituted by the Spirit”).
81
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 120.
82
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 120.
83
Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 120.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 185

instructions concerning the pneuma speak to ethnic Jews who lack

the pneuma.84 But this analysis too quickly forecloses discussion of
the issues concerning Jews and gentiles on the procedural grounds of
audience and readership.
To her credit, Hodge grapples with the merits of the role of the
pneuma for both gentiles and Jews in Paul’s letters. Hodge proposes
that in Paul’s age, Jews and gentiles now essentially share the same
goal of living as the law requires, “but the means are different (life
in the spirit for gentiles; faithful practice of the Law for Jews).”85
As I have been arguing throughout, I am inclined to agree with this
proposal, with important exceptions. Gentiles in Christ are described
as “upholding the law” (Rom 3:31), which I take to mean that they
are doing what the law requires of them as aliens in the midst of
Israel’s covenant.86 I concur with Hodge (as well as Thiessen) that
Jewish believers were not instructed to lay down Torah practice
despite their baptism in Christ. While Hodge can recognize that Paul
applies the new covenant for gentiles (Jer 31 and Ezek 36), Hodge’s
proposal does not grapple with the relevance of the new covenant
and the power of the Spirit for Israel. But in these prophetic texts,
the new covenant is the covenant which was made with the houses
of Israel and Judah.87 Ironically, the pneumatologies written within
the Paul-­within-­Judaism framework leave the place of the pneuma
for Jews largely undeveloped, developing a non-­Jewish and Stoicized
rendering of pneuma for non-­Jewish recipients of Paul’s letters.
If Paul’s mission has in mind the promises of the new covenant
(e.g., 2 Cor 3:6; 1 Cor 11:25; cf. Jer 31:33; Ezek 36:26–­27; Isa
59:21), one should expect that Paul anticipated the new covenant
pneuma to be intended for Israel as well as gentiles. The reference
to the covenant and the removal of sins for Israel in Romans 11:27

84
See the discussion on “audience,” n. 35 above.
85
Hodge, If Sons, 74.
86
See the discussion on the Apostolic Decree in § 5.1.3.
87
Jer 31:31–­32 (The “new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of
Judah . . . will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took
them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant”);
Isa 59:21 (notice here that the covenant is with reference to “My Spirit that is
upon you”).
 186 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

supports this point.88 By combining two Isaianic prophecies with

respect to ethnic Israel, Paul envisions the “covenant with Israel” to
be a matter of the forgiveness of sins, the same distinctive promise of
Jeremiah’s new covenant. The content of the “covenant” in Isaiah
59, importantly, concerns the “Spirit that is upon [Israel]” and that
Spirit will never depart from them (Isa 59:21). In other words, the
covenant in Romans 11:27, concerning Israel’s restoration, appears
to correspond with the features of the covenant of Jeremiah 31 and
Ezekiel 36. Both are covenants that address the forgiveness of sins in
connection with a giving of the Spirit and the righteous manner of
walking according to the law.89 There appears but one and the same
Spirit that restores God’s people, both Israel and the gentiles. The
“new covenant” was not a Christian interpolation of Jewish texts or
a vehicle for supersessionism but rather signified a set of promises
squarely within the aegis and horizon of Jewish eschatology.
The scholarship of Caroline Johnson Hodge and Matthew Thiessen
has advanced our understanding of the pneuma considerably. Many
of their broader points concerning Paul’s relationship to Judaism are
consonant with the claims of this thesis. My main points of criticism
primarily surround their presentation of pneuma in terms of ethnicity
and nationality. By registering Paul’s pneuma language on the level of
ethnicity and as a gentile proxy for Abrahamic bloodlines, these pro-
posals are calculated to avoid a Christian universalizing “Spirit.” What
results in this avoidance is a reconstruction of a material pneuma that
is ultimately incapable of handling the shape of Paul’s logic of family
ties that are rooted in the identity of Christ’s own status as Son, and by
virtue of baptismal union, the status of believers in Christ as “children

88
While most scholars recognize Isa 27:9 and Isa 59:21 to supply the allu-
sion, given the phrase ὅταν ἀφέλωμαι αὐτοῦ τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, the links with “cove-
nant” and the forgiveness of sins also suggest a correspondence with Jer 31:33.
See, e.g., Thomas R. Schreiner, Romans, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Aca-
demic, 2018), 602. Importantly, the covenant with Israel in Isa 59:21 is likewise
a covenant concerning the “spirit”: “And this is my covenant with them, says the
Lord: My Spirit that is upon you . . . shall not depart out of your mouth.”
89
On the Pauline logic of the Spirit as the power of obedience to the Law in
2 Cor 3, see Scott J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/
Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 (Tübingen:
Mohr, 1995).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 187

of God by faith.” In Pauline logic, children of the Spirit are not eth-
nically children of Abraham; they are children of God who share the
same faith of Abraham in the promises of God.

6.4. The Apocalyptic Paul, Pneuma, and the

Question of Continuity
This extended discussion between Paul-­within-­Judaism and new per-
spective scholarship, particularly as it touches upon the perdurance of
Israel after Christ, invites exchange with the so-­called apocalyptic Paul
paradigm in Pauline theology.90 By this, I refer to a particular group
of Pauline interpretation that was set in motion principally by Ernst
Käsemann and given distinct shape by J. Louis Martyn and those
following him. The terminology of “apocalyptic” has been (by admis-
sion of some of its proponents)91 an ongoing source of confusion.
The term for this particular reading of Pauline theology has in mind
something quite distinct from the norms and characteristics of Jewish
apocalypticism, the genre apocalypse, and apocalyptic eschatology.92

90
The amount of literature generated around this particular approach to
Pauline theology in a fairly compressed time frame is a testament to its salience
and importance, not only in historical critical scholarship of the Bible, but also
in Christian theological exchange. See, e.g., R. Barry Matlock, Unveiling the
Apocalyptic Paul: Paul’s Interpreters and the Rhetoric of Criticism (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and
Jason Maston, Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2016); and J. P. Davies, Paul among the Apocalypses? An Evaluation of the
“Apocalyptic Paul” in the Context of Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Literature
(London: Bloomsbury, 2016).
91
E.g., the remarks of Beverly R. Gaventa, “The Singularity of the Gospel: A
Reading of Galatians,” in Pauline Theology, ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1991), 1:158–­59; also Douglas A. Campbell, The Quest for Paul’s Gos-
pel: A Suggested Strategy (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 56–­57.
92
On these distinctions, see Lorenzo DiTommaso, “Apocalypses and Apoc-
alypticism in Antiquity (Part I),” Currents in Research 5, no. 2 (2007): 235–­86.
Scholars studying the features of Jewish apocalyptic material include Klaus Koch,
John Collins, Christopher Rowland, and Loren Stuckenbruck, among others.
For an overview of this enclave of scholarship, see Benjamin E. Reynolds and
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds., The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping
of New Testament Thought (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017); Christopher Row-
land, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christian-
ity (1982; repr., Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2002), 48 (noting that while an
 188 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Douglas Campbell goes as far as deeming “the identification of apoc-

alyptic literature as a genre” to be “useless to the Pauline interpreter
other than as background characterization.”93 Consequently, while
some critics of this group of scholarship rightly observe that scarce
little of the “apocalyptic Paul” scholarship actually appeals to the lit-
erary and ideological aspects of apocalyptic literature,94 the point is
seldom recognized that such avoidance is largely by design.95 This
section will discuss the contributions of J. L. Martyn and Douglas
Campbell to canvas an apocalyptic interpretation of Israel and gentile
churches while paying close attention to how the Spirit is used in
furthering their claims.

6.4.1. J. L. Martyn and Galatians

According to Martyn’s reading of Galatians, much is made of the
interchangeability of the Pauline term “apocalypse of faith” with “the
coming of Christ” (cf. Gal 3:24 and 3:25).96 Consequently, instead
of the traditional understanding of the term “apocalypse” as revealing
or unveiling that which has been hidden, Martyn explains the term in
the following manner:
Paul’s apocalyptic is not focused on God’s unveiling something
that was previously hidden as though it had been eternally

apocalypse may “contain much eschatological material,” eschatology itself is not

“a constitutive feature of apocalyptic”).
93
Campbell, Quest, 56–­57 (citing also Wayne A. Meeks, “Social Functions of
Apocalyptic Language in Pauline Christianity,” in Apocalypticism in the Mediter-
ranean World and the Near East, ed. David Hellholm [Tübingen: Mohr, 1983]).
To be clear, Campbell characterizes his own framing of Paul under the penum-
bra of “apocalyptic” interpretations, but he importantly moves away from the
constraints and features of the genre as itself determinative of the shape of Paul’s
symbolic and theological system of thinking.
94
E.g., the prefatory remarks of Reynolds and Stuckenbruck, Jewish Apoca-
lyptic Tradition, xv.
95
The work of Martinus de Boer is a notable exception of one in this group of
scholarship seeking to frame Pauline theology directly in a pattern rooted in and
with the pattern of apocalyptic literature. See, e.g., Martinus C. de Boer, “Paul,
Theologian of God’s Apocalypse,” Interpretation 56, no. 1 (2002): 21–­33.
96
J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 99 (“Paul thus expli-
cates the verb apokalyptô with the verbs erchomai, ‘to come [on the scene],’ and
exapostellô, ‘to send [into the scene]’ [4:4–­6]”).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 189

standing behind a curtain (contrast 1 Cor 2:9–­10). The gen-

esis of Paul’s apocalyptic—­as we see it in Galatians—­lies in
the apostle’s certainty that God had invaded the present evil
age by sending Christ and his Spirit into it.97

To be clear, then, an apocalyptic reading of Paul emphasizes not a

revelation of hidden wisdom but God’s invasion of the entire cosmos,
which had been subject to the powers of sin and death (Gal 3:22).98
Whatever acknowledgment of narrative continuity is granted
toward a discernible redemptive history, it is nevertheless insisted
in this view that the so-­called Christ event constitutes an invasion
that is fiercely calculated to be fundamentally irruptive, “punctiliar,”99
or otherwise arriving from outside the timeline of human history as
though “vertical from above.”100 In emphasizing this aspect, impor-
tance is often attributed to the instances where Paul describes himself
or other apostles as having been “taught by God” (cf. 1 Thess 4:9)
or as receiving God’s mystery by direct revelation rather than by man
(cf. Gal 1:12, 16). Against the new perspective, Martyn quarrels that
their presentation of the Pauline gospel mischaracterizes Paul’s reas-
sessment of the law. Paul is not correcting an “old and unacceptably
narrow view” of the law, widening the circle, as it were, to relax the
standards of Torah in order to permit gentile inclusion. Instead, Mar-
tyn argues that Paul, particularly in Galatians, locates obedience to
Torah as operating on “the human side of a divine-­human antinomy
that has arisen with the advent of the gospel.”101 In keeping clear

97
Martyn, Galatians, 99.
98
See further, J. Louis Martyn, “Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul’s Letter to
the Galatians,” NTS 31, no. 3 (1985): 410–­24.
99
For this language of irruption and punctiliarity, see, e.g., J. Louis Mar-
tyn, “Events in Galatia: Modified Covenantal Nomism versus God’s Invasion
of the Cosmos in the Singular Gospel: A Response to J. D. G. Dunn and B. R.
Gaventa,” in Pauline Theology, ed. Jouette M. Bassler, vol. 1 (Minneapolis: For-
tress, 1991), 160–­79.
100
The phrase Senkrecht von Oben is an oft-­quoted formulation characterizing
Barth’s view of divine revelation such that any revelation draws its origins from
God himself as opposed to the plane of history and human striving. E.g., Karl
Barth, The Epistle to the Romans (1933), trans. Edwyn C. Hoskyns, 6th ed. (Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1968), 30; Karl Barth, Der Römerbrief (1922;
repr., Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 2008), 6.
101
Martyn, “Events in Galatia,” 166.
 190 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

divides between Martyn’s arrangement of Pauline antinomies, he

memorably insists that “for Paul there are no through-­trains from the
patriarchal traditions and their perceptive criteria—­whether Jewish or
Greek—­to the gospel of God’s Son.”102
Because of the stark denials in Martyn and subsequent apocalyptic
readings of Paul such that even Israel and the law, holy as they are,
have been subsumed by the powers of sin and darkness, the nuances of
their positions are often mischaracterized in the secondary literature.
Wright overstates his criticism when he characterizes the apocalyptic
reading as an “anti-­Jewish Christianity” that steps toward Marcion,
and wanting Paul “to have nothing to do with Abraham, with the
covenant or with the whole story of Israel.”103 The chief point of
contention is the extent to which Martyn and apocalyptic interpret-
ers actually deny continuity of Paul’s gospel with the covenants and
the history/identity of Israel in the context of the well-­worn debates
over continuity and discontinuity.104 The actual locus of discontinuity
that Martyn identifies in Paul’s gospel is not a break from Judaism

102
J. Louis Martyn, “Paul and His Jewish-­Christian Interpreters,” USQR 42,
no. 1–­2 (1988): 6.
103
Wright, PFG, 990, 1481. Martyn was aware of the charge of Marcion-
ism that his or other views of discontinuity with Israel would be susceptible to.
He distinguished his view of creation and “the world” from a Marcionite view
in J. Louis Martyn, “World without End or Twice-­Invaded World?” in Shak-
ing Heaven and Earth: Essays in Honor of Walter Brueggemann and Charles B.
Cousar, ed. Walter Brueggemann, Christine Roy Yoder, and Charles B. Cousar
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 117–­32. Martyn also recognizes
that “the God who called [Paul] is the God of the prophets (and of Abraham;
3:6–­29)” and finds a link with his own prophetic call with that of Jeremiah and
Isaiah. See, e.g., Martyn, Galatians, 164.
104
E.g., James D. G. Dunn, “How New Was Paul’s Gospel? The Problem of
Continuity and Discontinuity,” in Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Gala-
tians and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker, ed. L. Ann Jervis and Peter Rich-
ardson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 367–­88. See, more recently,
Jörg Frey, “Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N. T. Wright’s Paul, Apocalyptic
Interpretation, and the Constraints of Construction,” in God and the Faithful-
ness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T. Wright,
ed. Michael F. Bird, Christoph Heilig, and J. Thomas Hewitt (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2015), 489–­532 (which proposes a third way forward between the
more salvation-­historical approach of N. T. Wright and apocalyptic readings of
Paul); also Douglas Harink, “J. L. Martyn and Apocalyptic Discontinuity: The
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 191

to Christianity, but rather an abstraction he names “religion.” He is

worth quoting at length:
It follows that Paul does not speak in [Galatians] 1:15–­16
of being converted from one religion, Judaism, to another,
Christianity. Nor, in speaking to the Gentile Galatians, does
Paul denigrate Judaism. As the whole of the letter shows, he
is consistently concerned to say that the advent of Christ is
the end of religion. With his call, then, he neither remained
in the religion of Judaism nor transferred to a new religion,
from which vantage point he could comparatively denigrate
his earlier religion.105

In fact, much of the criticism that the apocalyptic reading regards

Paul as denying Israel’s status as God’s elect is fair only when retriev-
ing Martyn’s reading of Galatians only. Martyn reads Galatians for
all its worth and views Paul as portraying God even as “absent at
the genesis of the Law,” foreclosing any place for a divine, nomistic
election of Israel.106 Martyn, however, recognizes that in Romans,
Paul affirms the election of Israel and the law (in a secondary way
distinct from the pattern of the promise to Abraham).107 “In writing
Romans,” says Martyn, with regard to Galatians, “Paul certainly did
rescind his earlier denial of Israel’s ancient election. Are we to say,
then, that he changed his mind?”108
Compared against the aims of the new perspective and Paul-­within-­
Judaism scholars, the crucial issues of the apocalyptic reading con-
cerning the pneuma is not the identity of Abraham’s descendants, but
rather the much larger and more cosmic conflict with sin and death.
The Spirit, for the apocalyptic reading of Paul, is the unprecedented
agent of change in all creation that arrives only with Christ’s advent
and operates wholly outside the machinery of the world and its pow-
ers. Rather than reading the Pauline dualism of “Spirit and Flesh” as
spheres of influence that the individual believer is caught between,

Trinitarian, Christological Ground of Galatians in Galatians 4:1–­11,” Journal for

the Study of Paul and His Letters 7, nos. 1–­2 (2017): 101–­11.
105
Martyn, Galatians, 164.
106
Martyn, Galatians, 350.
107
Martyn, Galatians, 351.
108
Martyn, Galatians, 351.
 192 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

Martyn views Paul as characterizing this struggle as “the apocalyptic

battle of the end-­time, the war that has been declared by the Spirit,
not by the Flesh.”109
Insofar as Martyn frames Paul’s apocalyptic gospel in terms of
God’s sending the Son and the Spirit into the present evil age by
means of an invasion from outside, this assumes something quite
problematic about the Spirit. It assumes that the Spirit also was not
present in the world before the Christ event, only merely promised.
The following comments from John Barclay captures well this line of
reasoning with respect to Paul’s view of pneuma:
Paul’s new and totalizing master-­narrative of the gift of God
in Christ tells of a transformative and radically innovative
divine intervention creating historical phenomena (including
the pneuma) that had been previously promised but never
before introduced into the cosmos.110

But if the Spirit of God attested to in Israel’s Scriptures is the same

Spirit in Paul’s gospel, then there remains no point in history in which
God’s Spirit can be said to invade. To the contrary, the argument has
been made here that Paul relies on a continuity of God’s presence
with his people in terms of Spirit. As Israel’s prophets have affirmed,
“the Spirit stands” in Israel’s midst (Hag 2:5).111

6.4.2. Douglas Campbell and Romans

Douglas Campbell, along these lines, articulates a rendering of Paulin-
ism he names PPME, which stands for the participatory, pneumatologi-
cal, martyrological, eschatological quality of Paul’s gospel.112 Campbell’s

109
Martyn, Galatians, 494.
110
John M. G. Barclay, “Stoic Physics and the Christ-­Event: A Review of
Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, Cosmology and the Self in the Apostle Paul: The
Material Spirit,” JSNT 33, no. 4 (2011): 406–­14, 413.
111
Translation is mine. See the helpful discussion of this passage in John
R. Levison, The Holy Spirit before Christianity (Waco: Baylor University Press,
2019), 74–­83.
112
Campbell, Quest, 56 (“I don’t mind what we call it, as long as we discuss
its nature, structure, and defence”). The elucidation and defense of his PPME
framework can be found at 57–­93.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 193

project seeks to correct the contractual and conditional majority reading

of Paul, with roots drawing back through mainline Protestantism and
the Reformation. Campbell seeks instead to center Paul’s theology as it
is formulated in Romans 5–­8,113 which gives pride of place to Paul’s par-
ticipatory “in Christ” conceptuality, which in turn is marked by Christ’s
death and resurrection, a martyrological reality that the pneuma reca-
pitulates in each believer in a process of transformation that is ensured
in light of the eschatological reality that has dawned.114 Importantly,
Campbell finds that Paul regards the Spirit to be the principal locus of
continuity that ties creation, Israel, and eschatological believers togeth-
er115—­a view this study largely resonates with. He goes so far as to name
“pneumatology [as] the key to the soteriological mechanism” of his
program over against faith or mystical union.116
Like Martyn’s scheme, Campbell’s overall view of Pauline theol-
ogy is often critiqued for the starkness of the things that he denies.117
At the heart of his project, following Martyn (and also the non-
contrastive divine transcendence of Barth), he exhibits painstaking
avoidance of any aspect of Paul’s gospel that is either (1) contrac-
tual and merit-­based as the basis for God’s acceptance of persons,
or (2) progressively salvation-­historical in character. He firms up
the irrevocability of these denials in his prodigious treatise Deliver-
ance of God.118 Whereas Martyn leaves open the possibility for Paul’s

113
Campbell sees Rom 1–­4 as elucidating the principal contours of what he
calls justification by faith theory and Rom 9–­11 mapping the concerns of salva-
tion historical schemes. I do not see where Campbell finds these sections of Paul’s
letter to signify three self-­contained views, nor do I agree with him that these
represent three incompatible readings with “fundamentally different assumptions
about reality, about salvation, and about its appropriation” (Quest, 25).
114
Campbell, Quest, 57–­68, esp. 58–­59.
115
Campbell, Quest, 64.
116
Campbell, Quest, 60.
117
See, e.g., Barclay, Gift, 169–­74 (comparing Campbell’s insistence on the
unconditional noncircularity of grace as finding parallels only to Marcion in the
history of interpretation); Grant Macaskill, “Review Article: The Deliverance of
God,” JSNT 34, no. 2 (2011): 150–­61.
118
Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading
of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009).
 194 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

gospel to include an election of Israel for its own sake according to

his reading of Romans, Campbell closes this door firmly shut—­the
heart of his apocalyptic interpretation is centered on his novel read-
ing of Romans.119
Considering Romans in particular, Campbell strains to take Paul’s
voice away from Romans 1–­4 and 9–­11, deeming these sections to
serve as a view of his opponents by means of prosopological exege-
sis. There are, however, less extreme ways to retain the centrality of
Romans 5–­8, while holding the Pauline unity of the letter together.
One clue confirming that there is a structured center in Romans
comes by tracing the clearly intentional pattern of the occurrences of
pneuma throughout the letter. We can depict this graphically in the
following figure.120

Occurrences of the πνεῦμα lexeme in Romans

119
Campbell, Deliverance. His prosopological reading of Rom 1–­ 4 as it
relates to the rest of Romans has won few supporters. Nor is it clear to me that it
is necessary for him to exclude Rom 1–­4 and 9–­11 as incompatible with chapters
5–­8 to support his overall program at least as it concerns PPME; but I admit that
I may be misunderstanding the theological commitments that he deems nonne-
gotiable in those sections of Romans.
120
The figure was generated by a Hits Graph search from the Accordance
platform.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 195

Not only do the occurrences of pneuma spike in Romans 8 prom-

inently, but they drop off with corresponding paucity throughout the
surrounding sections of the epistle, almost as though attempting to
purposefully avoid use of the lexeme (even in sections where it makes
sense to speak in terms of pneuma).121 We find nothing like this lexical
distributive phenomenon in any of Paul’s other letters.122 We cannot
know for certain what Paul’s didactic purpose was in crafting such a
calculated arrangement.123 And while scholars have puzzled over the
implications of such an explosion of pneuma language at the center of
Romans, few have deemed the structural center of the epistle to serve
as the interpretive key to the entire letter.124 It is, however, this sort
of structural prominence that may lend more strength to Campbell’s
claim concerning the centrality of Romans 5–­8 for the proper under-
standing of the whole letter.

6.4.3. On the Christ Event, Metanarratives, and Reading

Backward
It is a commonplace for apocalyptic readings of Paul to emphasize
the so-­called Christ event as a type of magnetic north for a proper

121
One such example is the discussion of gifts in Rom 12. The diversity of
gifts within the body concerns a discussion that Paul elsewhere describes in the
language of pneuma and pneumatikos (1 Cor 12–­14). But Paul, as it were, keeps
the word in abeyance in Rom 12–­14, so that it retains a distinct prominence in
this structured center at Romans 8.
122
Although we should note that Colossians displays a similarly calculated
avoidance of the pneuma lexeme, particularly in places we might expect to find it
given the parallels Colossians bears with Ephesians. E.g., compare Eph 5:18–­19
with Col 3:16–­17 (substituting “be filled with the spirit” with “let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly”).
123
The lexeme πνεῦμα and its cognates occur twenty-­one times in the eighth
chapter, and all but two of the occurrences (vv. 15a and 16b) refer to the Holy Spirit.
E.g., Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996),
468 (observing such prominence works out to almost once every two verses).
124
Apart from Campbell, other notable examples of a central, structural reading
of Romans can be found in Richard N. Longenecker, “The Focus of Romans: The
Central Role of 5:1–­8:39 in the Argument of the Letter,” in Romans and the People
of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee, ed. Sven K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); and L. Ann Jervis, The Purpose of Romans: A
Comparative Letter Structure Investigation (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991).
 196 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

orientation of Pauline theology.125 In contrast to a progressive, for-

ward reading of salvation history as advancing from creation, to
promise, to fulfillment in Christ, apocalyptic readings contend that
Paul views history “through Christ and from Christ backward.”126
In many regards, this inherits from E. P. Sanders the classic Pauline
category of “problem and solution,” wherein it is insisted that for
Paul the “solution precedes the problem.”127 Central to an apocalyp-
tic interpretation, then, is the idea that the Christ event generates a
new understanding of history, Israel, and the identity of God’s peo-
ple. Accordingly, the basis for Paul’s understanding of Israel’s history,
now with direct reference to Christ, is supplied by a hermeneutics
of reading backward. Gaventa sums up this approach well: “In the
death and resurrection of Christ Jesus, God has begun to reclaim
the world that belongs to God alone, God’s action in Christ Jesus
reveals retrospectively the extent of human enslavement; the whole
of humanity (indeed, the whole of creation) is, in effect, revealed in
Christ Jesus.”128 The scope of emphasis then includes the destiny of
Israel and the gentiles but encompasses far more in its wide-­angle
apocalyptic lens. The right understanding of Israel, as everything else,
must now be reinterpreted in light of the revelation in Christ. Adds
Gaventa, “Israel’s very identity is revealed in light of Christ.”129
Francis Watson enters this discussion, largely in criticism of a nar-
rative approach to Scripture, with the observation that Paul does not
appeal to a unified scriptural story as a whole; while Paul appeals
to Scripture abundantly in his letters, he does not incorporate his

125
An origin for this expression likely owes to J. C. Beker, Paul the Apostle:
The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 18.
126
Beverly R. Gaventa, “Thinking from Christ to Israel: Romans 9–­11 in
Apocalyptic Context,” in Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination, ed. Ben C. Black-
well, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 242.
127
Sanders, Paul, 548–­49.
128
Gaventa, “Christ to Israel,” 241.
129
Gaventa, “Christ to Israel,” 241. Campbell goes so far as to identify “for-
wardness” to be “the basic problem underlying all the specific difficulties in
Pauline scholarship.” Douglas A. Campbell, “An Attempt to Be Understood:
A Response to the Concerns of Matlock and Macaskill with The Deliverance of
God,” JSNT 34, no. 2 (2011): 166 and 176 (adding that we must “read Paul
consistently ‘backward’ and never read him ‘forward’”).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 197

gospel message in service of a larger scriptural narrative, but rather

uses Scripture in support of various aspects of his gospel.130 In this
way, Watson deems Paul to be elucidating “an essentially nonnarrat-
able gospel.”131 Christ is not presented as a character in the scriptural
narrative (from Adam, to Israel, to Christ). Rather, Paul interprets
Scripture in light of Christ but more importantly, interprets Christ
in the light of scriptural narrative, “for it is his vocation as an apos-
tle to interpret scripture not for its own sake but for the sake of its
testimony to God’s act in Christ.”132 Watson does not find this kind
of interpretation as “tracing” anything along the vein of scriptural
history and scriptural narrative: “[T]he grace of the one man Jesus
Christ is the gift of God, and the divine act of giving occurs within
the vertical plane rather than the horizontal one.”133

6.5. Conclusion: Synthesis and Proposals for Further

Engagement
As we have seen, Wright exemplifies an understanding of spiritual
fulfillment in which the old Jewish/gentile differences are now rela-
tivized in the name of Christian unity. Paul-­within-­Judaism scholar-
ship, by contrast, lays the accent on ethnicity as something that is not
relativized, but embraced in Paul’s symbolic and prophetic system of
thought. Jews must remain Jews and gentiles must remain gentiles.
Gentiles are conjoined or (in more Pauline terms) grafted by some
form of pneumatic material so that they receive an ethnic proxy for
standing with the Jewish people. Against both views, “apocalyptic
Paul” scholars find in Paul’s gospel a novum of radical singularity,
unconditioned by the natural events of history (including, to a large
extent, Israel’s own history), but instead preeminently revealed in the
death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Under such a view, Israel’s
covenant and legal obligations are not so much irrelevant as they are

130
Francis Watson, “Is There a Story in These Texts?” in Narrative Dynamics
in Paul: A Critical Assessment, ed. Bruce W. Longenecker (Louisville: Westmin-
ster John Knox, 2002), 234–­35.
131
Watson, “Story,” 239.
132
Watson, “Story,” 238.
133
Watson, “Story,” 239. Watson, in this way, shares similar theological com-
mitments with Martyn and Campbell, citing with approval Barth’s dictum that the
gospel announces a divine incursion into the world “vertically from above” (232).
 198 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

subsumed under the more basic conflict of sin and death. Contrary
to the Paul-­within-­Judaism paradigm, the apocalyptic presentation of
Paul’s gospel is decidedly nonethnic and conditioned by a new way
of knowledge and understanding through what has been revealed in
Christ. So says Martyn: “In the disruptive action of God in Christ,
Paul found that crucial aspects of his Jewish heritage were also given
back to him, re-­minted into non-­religious currency, but if anything,
with heightened significance: ‘God is one’ (Gal 3:20; Rom 3:30);
Abraham is ‘the father of us all’ (Rom 4:16; cf. Gal 3:29).”134 Having
reset the three perspectives in broad relief, we are able to make some
synthetic arguments concerning the contribution of this thesis into
these various debates.

6.5.1. Pneuma and Ethnic Israel

Of principal importance in this chapter is the argument that the
pneuma is being pressed to carry loads in each of these respective
arguments in ways that it is not suited to bear. Wright stands for the
claim that the Spirit makes gentile Christians to be Jewish (by ful-
filling the promises made to Israel). Ironically, Paul-­within-­Judaism
scholars stand for a similar claim: the spirit makes gentile Christians
akin to Jewish people (not by fulfillment, but by a construction of
pneuma-­based, genealogical ethnicity). This study contends that the
Spirit accomplishes neither in Pauline discourse. Pace the Paul-­within-­
Judaism reading, Paul’s view of pneuma is not used as a means to
constitute Abrahamic sonship; pneuma only testifies that all believers
are “sons of God”—­which we have tried to demonstrate are not over-
lapping concepts. Isaac, as the son kata pneuma, is the paradigm for
this family, not because of ethnicity or bloodline, but because of what
he signifies: the impossibility of being born under circumstances that
defy the limits of human striving and, consequently, appropriated by
those who trust in God’s promises.
But pace both the new perspective and apocalyptic readings, spir-
itual fulfillment does not in turn establish that pneuma fulfills God’s
promises in terms that end the Jewish law for Jewish believers. Such
a view simply ignores too much of the evidence in the texts revealing

134
J. Louis Martyn, “Paul and Christian Judaism,” in Theological Issues in the
Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 1–­2.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 199

believers grappling with how to maintain their allegiances to Torah in

the context of the new “one-­in-­Christ” unity. In Pauline terms, Jew-
ish believers sought to walk according to the law, not to establish a
righteousness of their own, but because the “Torah is holy and good”
(Rom 7:12). The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 provides the closest
evidence of how Jews-­in-­Christ still took for granted the obligation
to observe the Jewish law as Messiah people with gentiles in their
midst. Paul’s rhetoric of removing obstacles for the gospel, and even
of dying to the law (Gal 2:19), should not be read as a pronounce-
ment of the death of Torah, but rather as the ethos of the in-­Christ
unity, where gentiles remain as gentiles, “belonging to another”
(Rom 7:4), and as such, must not seek to establish their membership
in the “one-­in-­Christ” family on the basis of “works of the Law.”
Paul-­within-­Judaism scholars, then, are quite correct to emphasize
Paul’s gospel as emerging in concert with his Jewish beliefs and in line
with his understanding of Jewish prophecy.

6.5.2. Time and Spatiality

For the new perspective in particular, the promises and figures of
Scripture proceed in a forward vector of fulfillment. Exile remains a
single, suspended phase for Wright, going back to the timeline of the
departure of God’s glory within Israel’s midst.135 For Wright, there
is a “single story” of Scripture,136 “the long story of the world,”137
which begins with Adam, traces through Abraham, Moses, David,
and the exile, and finds its ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah. The

135
N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: For-
tress, 1992), 299–­301; Wright, PFG, 139–­63.
136
Wright, PFG, 1455; Wright wants to avoid characterizing his metanar-
rative as a linear progression akin to “salvation history,” but it appears that his
only defense against such a characterization is to identify the story as bearing
“subversive twists” and surprising turns along the way; see, e.g., Wright, PFG,
1062 (describing how Paul “radically redrew . . . the story of God’s people” but
developing it in “the shocking and totally unexpected way in which the story had
in fact reached its denouement”); also 516.
137
N. T. Wright, Paul and His Recent Interpreters: Some Contemporary
Debates (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 147, also 152. He is also known to
invoke the analogy of a five-­act drama to portray the narrative story of Scripture.
N. T. Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today
(New York: Harper One, 2011), 122–­27.
 200 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

fundamental problem of insisting on a single “story” of the Bible is

in what the story leaves out. Wright’s “story,” broad as it may be,
leaves out many of the features of Scripture (its cultic instructions, its
poetry, its prophetic instruction, its experiential renderings of Christ,
and so forth). All aspects of Scripture not fitting within the frame
of the story have a tendency to be discarded.138 But Paul does not
appear to interact with Scripture as a contained narrative. Instead,
Paul cuts across Scripture at the angle of “faith” and “promise,” and
indeed permits Abraham, Isaac, and David to speak in a particular
gospel register resonant with those terms (e.g., 2 Cor 4:13–­14; Gal
3:8). Importantly, Paul can distinguish “the gospel” as one way of
viewing Israel: outsiders (Rom 11:28a); but he can also distinguish
“the election” as another way of viewing Israel: beloved for the sake of
the fathers (Rom 11:28b). Wright’s vision collapses these two catego-
ries into one, filtering out far too much to describe the kind of unity
Paul labored to forge in the churches.
But with Wright (and in modification of the apocalyptic read-
ing), I agree that Paul regards the promises in Scripture concern-
ing the covenant and the temple as forming the unavoidable context
for Christ as Messiah. The images of Christ’s union with his peo-
ple remain in the clothing of Israel’s requirements for maintaining
sacred space—­even if on a corresponding heavenly register. Temple,
commandment, and covenant are symbols that Paul relies on to give

138
Instead of working within a discernible grand narrative, it is perhaps more
accurate to describe Paul’s use of figures, motifs, catchwords, and prophecies in
the Jewish Scripture as selecting authoritative material to affirm key aspects of
community identity and ethical obligation. Rather than being constrained by a
narrative substructure, the material is more freely selected within a rich anthol-
ogy for its value in addressing the various needs and concerns of the community
in their present time. Stuckenbruck artfully characterizes this kind of selectivity as
“a way to recover what it visibly means to be God’s people in the present.” Loren
T. Stuckenbruck, “Some Reflections on Apocalyptic Thought and Time in Liter-
ature from the Second Temple Period,” in Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination,
ed. Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston (Minneapolis: For-
tress, 2016), 148; see also Erich S. Gruen, “The Use and Abuse of the Exodus
Story,” in Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2002), 41–­72 (demonstrating how Exodus narra-
tives have been handled in diaspora textual communities in rich and diverse ways
to meet the needs of each of the writers and communities).
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 201

shape to the relational pattern of Christ and his people. As I under-

stand Martyn and the apocalyptic reading of these symbols, they are
affirmed only retrospectively and never in the role of forming a con-
text to understand God’s saving activity in Christ. But this appears to
assume something deficient in God’s presence with Israel that is only
corrected in the age of the church.
Framing Paul’s spirit-­temple imagery in terms of its spatial fea-
tures provides a needed dimension to better handle the complexities
of Paul’s use of Scripture and his interaction with Israel as a motif.
Spatiality allows us to discuss Jewish and gentile unity in real contexts
without being limited to issues of temporal sequence, and therefore,
constrained by interpretations that must pair Jewish precursors with
a matching climax over time. Paul can speak of Christ’s presence with
Israel in terms of the rock itself, not as a prefigured shadow of a
later reality. God’s presence bears a pattern that does not evolve or
develop over time, but rather enters time from outside. The symbols
of that embodied presence (e.g., the rock, the temple, the cloud, the
glory) are active symbols that point to the reality of God’s presence in
and through time. Crucially, Paul uses “spiritual” language to char-
acterize these theophanies with Israel (i.e., Israel’s spiritual food and
spiritual drink [1 Cor 10:3–­4]). The important question concerning
the Spirit in the age of Christ is not simply a matter of “when” God’s
promises find their fulfillment, but rather the overlooked question of
“where” God’s presence can be found on the earth and whether both
Jews and gentiles can be regarded as near or far from that presence.

6.5.3. The Spirit as the Locus of Continuity

A promising common ground among these three renderings of Paul
is the idea that the Spirit presents an important locus of continuity
between Israel and the church, and between Jewish and Christian
Scriptures. For Wright, the Spirit in the life of believers is nothing less
than the shekinah: “[T]he long-­awaited, glorious tabernacling pres-
ence is the spirit” (PFG, 711). And while Martyn and the apocalyptic
readings betray an aversion to any kind of progression or trajectory
from Israel to Christ, their readings, it appears, are amenable to the
idea that God’s Spirit is the constant of vertical inbreaking that Israel
and the church can be said to share together. So Campbell: “[T]he
concerns of the critics about continuity can in my view be met, pro-
vided that we grasp what the concrete role of the Spirit is in relation
 202 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

not just to Christ but to humanity and creation.”139 Importantly,

J. C. Beker, a pioneering voice for the apocalyptic Paul interpreta-
tion, writes that, in summarizing his letters together, “for Paul, the
locus of the interaction between coherence and contingency is the
Holy Spirit.”140
It is unclear how receptive interpreters holding to a Paul-­within-­
Judaism view would be to the suggestion of a close connection
between the “Spirit of God” of the Hebrew Scriptures and the same
Spirit of Paul’s covenantal eschatology. As far as I have reviewed,
Paul-­within-­Judaism scholarship presently lacks an account of pneuma
that applies to and for practicing Jews. Instead, the state of the art in
this group of scholarship is to leave the pneuma for Jews undeveloped
on the basis that Paul’s letters to gentile churches did not include his
thinking on these matters.141 The argument has been made here that
Paul regards the pneuma as that which not only saves Jewish believers
in his present time, but also forms the basis for a fuller restoration of
Israel in the future (cf. Isa 59:20–­21 and Rom 11:26–­27).

6.5.4. Circling Back to the Corinthian Letters

To this point, the discussion among new perspective on Paul,
Paul-­within-­Judaism, and apocalyptic Paul scholarship has centered
predominately around Galatians and Romans and the ways in which
these two letters frame the principal Pauline issues. Bringing more
of Paul’s letters into this mix, in this case 1–­2 Corinthians, serves to
sharpen and develop the points of contention among these interpre-
tive paradigms. Hence, while the Corinthian correspondence does
not expound upon “righteousness by faith,” “works of the law,” nor
on Abrahamic patrilineage in the way that Galatians and Romans
develop these ideas, they do share with these two epistles an emphasis
on the pneuma and its accompanying norms of union and unity while
applying them to a demonstrably different context. By elucidating
how Paul deploys his pneuma unity discourse in this setting, new

139
Campbell, Quest, 64.
140
J. C. Beker, “Recasting Pauline Theology: The Coherence-­Contingency
Scheme as Interpretive Model,” in Pauline Theology, ed. Jouette M. Bassler (Min-
neapolis: Fortress, 1991), 1:19, 21.
141
See § 6.3.4.
One Spirit in Pauline Studies 203

categories have emerged in which to apply Paul’s images of unity such

as union with Christ and baptism in the Spirit. With only Romans
and Galatians in view, the unitive dynamics between Jews and gen-
tiles tend to be characterized either in terms of a common history
(as in the new perspective tendency to link the standing of gentile
believers with the history of Adam, Abraham, and Israel), or in terms
of a common ethnicity (such as the Paul-­within-­Judaism approach in
establishing a coordinated gentile kinship to Abraham by means of
the pneuma). With the material from the Corinthian letters, however,
there emerges another spatial and cultic dimension that elaborates
on the meaning of the unity of the Spirit in terms that neither erases
nor transcends ethnic differences but rather retains these differences,
all the while accommodating them in a rectified cultic space for both
Jews and gentiles together. The Spirit in this arrangement is under-
stood to establish unity by enabling Jews and gentiles to offer distinct
expressions of common worship to one Lord.
It is helpful at this point to remember that Pauline ideas are pro-
foundly interconnected. One cannot know about the pneuma in
Paul’s letters without also knowing about the other ideas and per-
sons the pneuma joins together in “webs of significance.”142 Bearing
this in mind, we have pursued a line of argument that drew out the
relationship Paul arranged between pneuma and its important collo-
cations in the Corinthian letters: the temple, the body of Christ, and
relational unity along Jewish and gentile fault lines. We concluded
that the character of Paul’s spiritual unity was often cultic—relying
on the language of ritual and temple worship to promote a particular
kind of koinonia between Christ and the various groups Paul sought
to join together. This unity was such that it still sought to preserve
differences among these groups, whether circumcised or uncircum-
cised (1 Cor 7:19), and whether under the law or outside the law
(1 Cor 9:20–21).

Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and

142

Community at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 80; see also the discussion on page
43.
 7
Conclusions

Our study has proceeded on two levels. First, the descriptive task of
the study brought a range of potential backgrounds and ancient texts
to bear on the unitive dimensions of the spirit. This section did not
merely attempt a foreground for Pauline pneumatology, but sought
to allow the various textual groups to display their distinctive features
and accents on the spirit. Second, on a more targeted level, the study
defended the thesis that Paul regarded the Spirit as the sign that God’s
presence had come to dwell with his people in Christ and deployed
this idea as a strategy to foster unity across Jewish and gentile lines of
conflict. With the shape of spiritual unity so constructed, the thesis
has been able to identify and correct some of the inadequate ways
“Spirit” and “spiritualization” have been handled in Pauline schol-
arship. We can now summarize the results of our study in a way that
develops them for further exploration and exchange.

Pauline Pneuma Discourse among Comparative Texts

Both Jewish and Hellenistic sources reviewed in this study depict the
Spirit as a sign for divine presence and power. It is only the Stoic
material, however, that resembles Paul’s dimension of Spirit as that
which unites and joins together differing persons and objects with
respect to God. While the features of shared terminology (i.e.,
pneuma, unity, koinonia) are striking, on the level of the larger con-
trolling ideas in each system of thought, the respective reasons for
why the Spirit forms unity are profoundly divergent. The pneuma
of Stoic physics is common and pervasive throughout the entire

205
 206 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

universe. Paul’s pneuma is the opposite. It is holy and distinct from

the world. For the Stoics, the pneuma is the sign that the world will
conflagrate into pure fire and recur endlessly in the same manner.
For Paul, the pneuma conversely signifies the down payment that
this present world will give way to a distinctly new reality. Even were
we to grant an ontological resonance in Paul’s view of the pneuma
with Stoic pneumatology (e.g., how the pneuma transforms bodies
for heavenly life), we can conclude that Paul’s pneumatology did not
further Stoic principles and aims. Paul was evidently more concerned
with the theological problem of Christ’s presence with his people in
the face of his bodily absence—­a problem that pneuma addresses for
worshipping communities. None of these systemic differences pre-
clude the possibility that popular retrievals of the unifying pneuma in
Stoicism could have found their way into Paul’s own spirit discourse
and its reception. Some of the later Christian writers who observed
parallels between Paul and the Stoics on their views of the pneuma
indicate that such associations could have been made in Paul’s time.1
All of our literary texts reviewed in this study appreciated the spirit
for its ability to affect persons and objects in distinctly observable
ways. And while the Greek and Roman philosophical and medical
texts in particular lay great store in the materiality of pneuma as a
cohesive and life-­inspiring substance in the universe, we have found
that Paul stands more in line with Jewish prophetic and extrabibli-
cal literature which promotes a view of the spirit that interacts with
material substances (such as water, oil, and food) in order to signify
a divine grant of anointing or empowerment without pneuma itself
necessarily possessing corporeal substance. For Paul in particular,
pneuma derives its greatest significance not from what it is, but from
what it joins together. In other words, while the interaction of Spirit
and water is important (1 Cor 12:13), the significance is less in the
element of water and more in the reality the water attests to: the join-
ing of believers with Christ in one Spirit (1 Cor 6:17; 12:13). The
interaction with material means of reception, however, is not unim-
portant, as they are given prominence in Paul as the ritual means by
which believers participate in Christ and construct their cultic ethos
“in him.”

1
See the discussion in § 3.1.
Conclusions 207

Importantly, Paul’s presentation of the Spirit also aligns with the

association of God’s presence found in the prophetic and later Jew-
ish extrabiblical texts. As was true of texts such as Ezekiel and Jose-
phus, Paul also connects God’s glory in the temple with the Spirit of
God.2 So important is this relationship for Paul that he can ascribe
the Spirit’s dwelling presence within his communities directly in
terms of God’s temple.
This portion of the study also reflected on the structural similar-
ities between Paul’s elaboration of the spirit and some of the views
identifiable in the sectarian texts at Qumran. Principally, both Paul
and the sectarian texts (and only these two in the Second Temple
corpus) connect the prophetic promises of eschatological restoration
and covenant renewal with the outpouring of the Spirit in their own
time. Furthermore, both sets of texts emphasize a revelatory function
of the Spirit that prioritizes the instantiation of communal patterns of
law observance rather than esoteric disclosure or more ecstatic forms
of prophetic speech. None of this confirmed a literary dependence, as
their contrastive features are important. Beyond the critical difference
of Paul’s Christological impress on the Spirit, Paul was taken with the
idea of a democratization of the “Spirit” that extended to all people,
regardless of class, gender, or ethnicity—­a pouring out of the Spirit
“on all flesh” that cuts strongly against the sectarian outlook of the
Qumran community.

One Spirit and the Construction of Sacred Space

This thesis has elaborated on the unitive dimensions of Paul’s Spirit
with a focus on how Paul connects the Spirit with Christ, God’s peo-
ple, and God’s temple. This study has traced through the images of
the Spirit in the Corinthian letters in efforts to articulate its overall
shape. Paul’s overarching idea is that the risen Christ is united with
his people, and it is the Spirit that mediates and actualizes this union.
Because this is a sacred and divine union with humanity, Paul relies
on the mediating system of temple and its ordinances for purity and
sacred space. These are not, I have argued, merely metaphors that
illustrate how the churches relate with Christ. Paul risks appealing
to potentially fraught theological imagery to communicate these

2
§ 2.2.3; cf. Ezek 43:5; Josephus, Ant. 8.114 with 2 Cor 3:18.
 208 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

important identity statements: they are the Temple of the Holy

Spirit, the Temple of the living God, the body of Christ (1 Cor 6:19;
2 Cor 6:16; 1 Cor 12:27). These statements follow necessarily from
the idea that Christ is the holy presence of God, and any relationship
with him must be mediated by a temple, and the locus of that temple
is the body of Christ himself. Because this heavenly temple is reframed
in terms of a person rather than a building, those who worship in the
Spirit must be deemed to be “in Christ” and described in terms of
people united to or even identified with his body. For these reasons,
Paul’s ethical instructions to this temple body must correspondingly
adapt into relational categories like unity, separation, love, and the
“edification” or “building up” of the church in mutual relationships.
So closely related is Paul’s understanding of the Spirit with Christ
that Paul can identify the Spirit as “the Spirit of his Son” or “the Spirit
of Christ” (Gal 4:6; Rom 8:9). He portrays the Spirit as a down pay-
ment whose fulfillment is perfected not by more of the Spirit but with
the return of Christ himself (2 Cor 5:5, 8), thereby locating union
with the Spirit and with Christ as two related points along the same
spectrum. For this reason, this study has argued against a “both-­and”
concept where Paul regarded both the churches collectively and believ-
ers individually as temples of the Holy Spirit. Rather than each believer
being deemed a sacred temple, for Paul, the Spirit actualizes Christ’s
presence in the midst of the churches. The designation as God’s temple
is a collective identity that believers must share and must collectively
maintain. Just as there is only one body of Christ in Pauline thought,
there is one Temple of God that the Spirit mediates for the churches.
Consequently, Paul places surpassing value in the gathering of believers
because it is only in corporate worship that they can participate in the
body and blood of Jesus (1 Cor 10:16). The ultimate pronouncement
of judgment upon an immoral and unrepentant member is not con-
demnation unto eternal judgment, but physical removal from the fel-
lowship of believers—­a separation from the spiritual presence of Christ
that cannot be replicated in isolation (1 Cor 5:3–­13).
Following the spatial logic of Paul’s repeated appeals to “God’s
temple,” this study appealed to categories from spatial theory to
better name how Paul’s spirit-­temple imagery explicates Jew-­gentile
unity. The value of Soja’s theory of Thirdspace is in its capacity to
make room for a creative recombination of differences that can at
once retain aspects of distinct groups while forming a new entity
Conclusions 209

that is more than the sum of its parts.3 Resolving strident differences
need not always require that divided factions agree over conflicting
practices, valued traditions, and beliefs. Opposing groups may also
establish unity in how they might occupy the same space together
in recognition of their differences. In much the same way, Paul tries
to bring together fractiously divided groups of people by appealing
to a shared reconstruction of sacred space that is neither Jewish nor
wholly gentile, but creatively open to both sources. And while believ-
ers in Christ are “neither Jew nor gentile,” the resulting identity need
not be articulated in terms of a “third race,” as has been suggested
by some Pauline interpreters. In Paul’s language, those baptized in
the Spirit are not called “Christians,” nor are they a hybridized third
entity, but are named simply “one in Christ.” Rather than an onto-
logical transformation, Paul’s scheme is better described as a spatial-­
relational imaginary—­an idealized and actualized space that sought
to embrace the irreducible differences of both Jews and gentiles. In
this space, Jews and gentiles remain as they are, but worship the Lord
in a new ethos of cultic unity. Reframing these communal resolutions
around the valences of idealized space allows unity to obtain in a wor-
shipping community without resorting to a need to homogenize (or
hybridize) race or without redefining Israel in terms of a superseding
gentile assembly.

Paul’s Spirit and Paul’s Interpreters

In turning our attention to the ways the Spirit has been handled by pro-
ponents of the new perspective, the Paul-­within-­Judaism view, and the
apocalyptic readings of Paul, respectively, this study has also sought to
clarify how “Spirit” presently functions in these accounts of Paul’s unity
discourse. While affirming each of their distinctive points of empha-
sis, the study identified the ways each of these perspectives depend on
“spirit” and “spiritual fulfillment” in unworkable or problematic ways.
The new perspective is correct to affirm that the Spirit testifies
to a new kind of kinship in God’s family, a unity that is designed to
cross ethnic and social borders. But some proponents of this view
overstate their case by denying the ongoing commitments Jewish

3
See the discussion of spatial theory and Thirdspace in §§ 5.1.1 and 5.2.
 210 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

believers strived to retain with respect to the law. To the contrary,

Paul’s letters reveal an enclave of believers struggling to sort through
their allegiances to Torah in light of the inclusion of the gentiles in
their overall number. Paul’s call to unity signaled a new situation “in
Christ,” but this call remained within contested spaces in Pauline
communities that still required a mutual bearing of burdens between
both Jews, Godfearers, and gentiles. Paul’s Spirit does not redefine
God’s people so as to transcend the ethnicities of Jews and gentiles.
The Spirit creates a new worship of the one God in Christ that joins
together Jews and gentiles as they are.
The Paul-­within-­Judaism view is certainly correct, then, to empha-
size the eschatological arrangement of the new community of the
Messiah such that Jewish believers remain practicing Jews while gen-
tiles are brought near as worshipping gentiles. Paul, according to this
view, did not specify in any detail how Jewish Christians were to live in
light of this development of gentile inclusion, nor, conversely, did he
specifically address how gentile Christians were to accommodate Jew-
ish norms of allegiance to Torah. Many of these scholars are content
to point to Paul’s imminent eschatology to explain why Paul did not
need to sort through the details—­the end was nigh.4 But this para-
digm also fails to track Paul’s handling of the Spirit in drawing out the
unity that joins Jew and gentile together in the interim. This group

4
See, for example, the arguments from Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, If Sons,
Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 77, 117; Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 164–­65. But it is entirely possible that
Paul sought to address these very concerns, not in a casuistic manner, but in an
open-­ended and adaptable pattern of “walking in love” and bearing the burdens of
one another. Cf. Rom 14–­15:7; Gal 6:1–­2; 1 Cor 9:1–­11:1. Paul’s discourse con-
cerning the weak and the strong was particularly suited to handle such concerns
(however successfully or unsuccessfully). See, e.g., Volker Gäckle, Die Starken und
die Schwachen in Korinth und in Rom (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005); Carl N.
Toney, Paul’s Inclusive Ethic: Resolving Community Conflicts and Promoting Mis-
sion in Romans 14–­15 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008); and John M. G. Barclay,
“Matching Theory and Practice: Josephus’s Constitutional Ideal and Paul’s Strat-
egy in Corinth,” in Paul beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide, ed. Troels Engberg-­
Pedersen (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 162 (describing a “built-­in
‘uncertainty principle’” in Paul’s Rom 14 and 1 Corinthians discourse that allows
for permissible difference and differing expressions of a single faith).
Conclusions 211

of scholars, in several prominent studies, presents the pneuma as only

the gentile solution to the particularly gentile problem of genealogy
(they are not descendants of Abraham). Hence, the pneuma is pre-
sented as forming a way for gentiles to locate their lineage to Abra-
ham, a status Jews obtain naturally by birth. The problem that Paul
redresses, however, is not principally an ethnic problem requiring
gentiles to be children of Abraham, but rather that all God’s people
(both Jew and gentile) need to become, on a more fundamental level,
children of God—­a kinship that gathers a family not through blood-
line, but rather faith. Spirit, for Paul, is not sperm, nor seed, nor an
ethnic proxy for Jewish bloodlines, but is that which joins believers
to Christ and demarcates all those who belong to God in him (1 Cor
3:16, 23; Rom 8:9).
Finally, the apocalyptic view is correct to affirm that the Spirit
enables a distinctly new presence for God’s people in Christ. But the
shape of the resulting new community in Paul’s idiom is still articulated
in the well-­attested contexts of temple, covenant, and God’s promises
drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures. Since the Christ event is promoted
in this paradigm as that which retrojects meaning back into history,
apocalyptic readings problematically appear to read backward not just
on the history and religion of Israel, but upon even the Spirit of God in
Scripture. This study has sought to argue that Paul affirms the Spirit to
be the common and persistent signature for God’s presence both with
Israel and the churches. Even in the new situation where Paul regards
Christ to be the eternal temple “not made with hands,” he still regards
the symbols of tabernacle, the Jerusalem temple, and other instances
of spirit-­mediated presence in the Hebrew Bible to retain a sacred sym-
bology that contextualizes and informs the reality and presence of God
with his people. The sacred symbols “participate in that to which it
points.”5 Hence, the spiritual rock that followed Israel was Christ. The
wilderness generation of Israel were given “the same spiritual drink”
(1 Cor 10:4). Consonantly, Jews and gentiles, slaves and free were “all
made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12:13).

5
Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957),
42. Tillich notes that symbols are distinct from “signs,” which do not participate
in the reality to which they point—­signs are replaceable, and an attack on a sign
causes no outrage the way that an attack on a flag might symbolize.
 212 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

To argue this point is not to rehabilitate N. T. Wright’s “long

story” of one singular people of God redrawn around Christ and
Spirit. The Spirit and Christ do indeed elucidate a new way of reflect-
ing on the covenant and on the temple in ways that still draw from
the Jewish biblical material. But none of this requires that these
points be situated within a grand narrative, nor is it the case that Paul
necessarily presents the matter in this way. Paul’s use of Israel’s history
posits Christ on both sides of the intertestamental timeline operat-
ing with a conception of time that proceeds in a distinctly nonlinear
frame. A narratival reading of signs reaching their climax in Christ is
concerned with time and the question of when biblical precursors find
their fulfillment.
Among other things, what such a reading of Scripture ignores
are the questions that concern location and where one is before
God. The very first question that God asks of humanity after the
Fall is a question of location (Gen 3:9): “Where are you?” When the
first location of sacred space was revealed at Bethel, Abraham began
to “call on the name of the Lord” (Gen 12:8). In later generations,
God revealed to Israel “the place that he will choose to make his
name dwell there” (e.g., Deut 14:23; 16:6). So Paul, writing from
the new age of the Spirit, proclaims that God now calls his peo-
ple “in every place,” “both Jews and Greeks,” into “fellowship with
the Son Jesus Christ,” that they might “call upon the name of the
Lord” (1 Cor 1:2, 9, 24). In generations after him, Christians will
describe this extensive and inclusive gathering as “worship in spirit
and truth” (John 4:24; cf. Phil 3:3).
That this line of argument is on the right track is confirmed by
the evidence from Ephesians 2:11–­22.6 In this passage, gentiles are

6
While using Ephesians here as indirect evidence indicating Pauline recep-
tion, we should note the emerging number of Pauline scholars who have affirmed
Pauline authorship of Ephesians based on the available evidence. E.g., Douglas
A. Campbell, Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2014), 254–­338; also N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneap-
olis: Fortress, 2013), 56–­63. More recently, the light from Artemis backgrounds
for the study of Ephesians has been raised by scholars as supporting Pauline
authorship, as many of the common arguments about style and hapax legomena
lose their force against this background. See, e.g., Michael Immendörfer, Ephe-
sians and Artemis: The Cult of the Great Goddess of Ephesus as the Epistle’s Context
Conclusions 213

described as those “far off” who have now been “brought near.”
Paul explains that gentiles were “alienated from the commonwealth
of Israel” (2:12) and presents a new unity that the Spirit brings in
Christ.
For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the
Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but
you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the
household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles
and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in
whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into
a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built
together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Eph
2:18–­22)

Strikingly, the language of “one Spirit” is used to describe how both

Jews and gentiles share worshipping access to the Father. Christ is
both “cornerstone” and also the temple itself: “in him the whole
structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord”
(2:21). The way Ephesians can both affirm and complicate the thesis
presented here remains a study for another time. But this passage
stands as an elegant summary of the major points of this entire thesis:
The language of “one Spirit” refers to God’s temple, who is Christ
himself, and this temple bears meaningful consequences for the unity
of Jewish and gentile members of God’s household.

One Spirit for Israel and the Churches

Our leading theme of “one Spirit” has been studied as a means to
summarize a related strand of themes surrounding unity in Paul’s
gentile mission. On the level of identity, “one Spirit” gestures toward
its divine identity, sharing common origins and activity from the one
God of Israel and the one Lord, Jesus Christ (1 Cor 8:6; 12:4–­6).
More importantly, “one Spirit” serves as a way Paul names how
Christ is joined to his people (1 Cor 6:17; 12:13; cf. Gal 3:27–­28).
For Paul, this union is described in terms of presence, and this pres-
ence evokes correspondences from previously disclosed iterations of
sacred space in Scripture. Paul’s new spiritual community reinscribes

(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 325–­26; also Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians

(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2010), 46–­52.
 214 One Spirit: Pneumatology and Unity in the Corinthian Letters

a new ethos around Christ in terms evocative of Israel’s covenant and

temple worship, but also contains a distinct expansion of it to include
gentiles within the covenant assembly.
Within these “in Christ” communities, Paul’s repeated appeals to
unity betray a tension within some of the churches. These churches
struggled to “welcome one another” (Rom 15:7) and disagreements
grew so strident that consciences were “destroyed” (1 Cor 8:11–­12).
This study contends that the balancing principles reflected in the
Apostolic Decree provide significant context for 1 Corinthians in
explaining how some of the divided groups at Corinth were asked
to negotiate various expressions of law observance in common wor-
ship. Paul’s overarching instructions in these settings clearly com-
mand Jewish believers not to “Judaize” gentile believers with respect
to “works of the law” (Gal 2:14). But the converse is not indicated:
Paul nowhere commanded Jewish believers to forgo the law entirely
and the obligations, traditions, and customs therein. The gentiles,
as aliens “in the midst of Israel,” still retained the obligations that
the law reserved for them. In this balance, neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision was of importance, but rather “keeping the com-
mandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19). The ethos in the Corinthian let-
ters was not to collapse Jews and gentiles into one group, but to
worship together in such a way that they “give no offense to Jews or
to Greeks or the church of God” (1 Cor 10:32).
As we know now, the turns of history, particularly the destruction
of the Jerusalem temple, wrought serious damage to the frangible
union that Paul hoped for between gentile and Jewish believers as a
joint worshipping community. In fact, the evidence suggests that the
unity Paul sought after between Jewish and gentile believers proved
elusive even in his own lifetime and despite his best efforts—­not
least in his endeavors to gather the symbolic collection by gentile
churches for the saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1–­4; 2 Cor 8:1–­
9:15; Rom 15:14–­32). As the churches that continued to interpret
Paul in successive generations grew increasingly and homogenously
“gentile,” the dynamic tensions that underscored Paul’s gospel with
respect to the law no longer applied. The further Christian commu-
nities grew apart from actual Jewish observers of the Law, the more
Paul’s diatribe against the “works of the law” progressively trans-
muted toward personal matters of self-­righteousness. Consequently,
the gospel’s call for social reconciliation searched elsewhere for new
Conclusions 215

conflicts to resolve, what Barclay calls “the missionary theology . . .

turned inwards.”7 So Stendahl, “justification no longer ‘justified’ the
status of gentile Christians as honorary Jews, but became the time-
less answer to the plights and pains of the introspective conscience
of the West.”8
But in Paul’s own time, at least, the language of “one Spirit”
brimmed with a hoped-­for reality of worship “in Christ” by which
he sought to bring together the various cultic practices of Jews and
gentiles. In this rectified cultic environment, worshippers were to
celebrate the festival (1 Cor 5:8) and were tasked with driving the
wicked from their midst (1 Cor 5:13) in continuity with the covenant
obligations of Israel. They were to join Israel’s covenantal oath to not
provoke the Lord’s jealousy by pursuing idolatry but instead must
obey the command to love the Lord their God (1 Cor 10:21–­22;
8:1; 16:14). In “one and the same Spirit,” Jews and gentiles, slave
and free, male and female, were all baptized into one body and all
were made to drink of one Spirit (1 Cor 12:11, 13). The two distinct
groups, “both Jews and Greeks,” were called to worship the one God
as together they “call upon the name of the Lord, both their Lord and
ours” (1 Cor 1:2).

7
John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015),
571.
8
Krister Stendahl, Final Account: Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1995), 5.
 Bibliography

Aasgaard, Reider. My Beloved Brothers and Sisters: Christian Siblingship in

Paul. London: T&T Clark, 2004.
Achtemeier, Paul J. “An Elusive Unity: Paul, Acts, and the Early Church.”
CBQ 48, no. 1 (1986): 1–­26.
Ådna, Jostein. Jesu Stellung zum Tempel: Die Tempelaktion und das Tem-
pelwort als Ausdruck seiner Messianischen Sendung. Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2000.
Albright, W. F. Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1953.
Alexander, Philip S. “The Demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The
Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, edited
by Peter Flint and James C. Vanderkam, 331–­53. Leiden: Brill, 1999.
Algra, Keimpe. “Stoic Philosophical Theology and Graeco-­ Roman
Religion.” In God and Cosmos in Stoicism, edited by Ricardo Salles,
224–­51. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Arnold, Clinton E. The Colossian Syncretism: The Interface between Chris-
tianity and Folk Belief at Colossae. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995.
———. Ephesians. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2010.
———. “‘I Am Astonished That You Are So Quickly Turning Away!’
(Gal 1.6): Paul and Anatolian Folk Belief.” NTS 51, no. 3 (2005):
429–­49.
———. “Returning to the Domain of the Powers: Stoicheia as Evil Spirits
in Galatians 4:3,9.” NovT 38 (1996): 55–­76.
Asmis, Elizabeth. “What Is Anaximander’s Apeiron?” J. Hist. Phil. 19,
no. 3 (1981): 279–­97.
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Liter-
ature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968.
Averbeck, Richard E. “Breath, Wind, Spirit and the Holy Spirit in the
Old Testament.” In Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit

217
 218 Bibliography

of God in the Old Testament, edited by David G. Firth and Paul D.

Wegner, 25–­37. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011.
Baker, Christopher. “The Identity of the Spirit in Paul: Did the Spirit
Come to Possess a Distinct Identity within Paul’s Christian Monothe-
ism?” PhD diss., Australian Catholic University, 2013.
Barber, Michael P., and John A. Kincaid. “Cultic Theosis in Paul and
Second Temple Judaism.” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Let-
ters 5, no. 2 (2015): 237–­56.
Barclay, John M. G. Flavius Josephus: Against Apion: Translation and
Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
———. “‘I Will Have Mercy on Whom I Have Mercy’: The Golden Calf
and Divine Mercy in Romans 9–­11 and Second Temple Judaism.”
Early Christianity 1 (2010): 82–­106.
———. “An Identity Received from God: The Theological Configura-
tion of Paul’s Kinship Discourse.” Early Christianity 8, no. 3 (2017):
354–­72.
———. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan
(323 BCE–­117 CE). Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996.
———. “Matching Theory and Practice: Josephus’s Constitutional
Ideal and Paul’s Strategy in Corinth.” In Paul beyond the Judaism/
Hellenism Divide, edited by Troels Engberg-­Pedersen, 139–­64. Lou-
isville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
———. “‘Neither Jew nor Greek’: Multiculturalism and the New Per-
spective on Paul.” In Ethnicity and the Bible, edited by Mark G. Brett,
197–­214. Boston: Brill Academic, 2002.
———. Obeying the Truth: Paul’s Ethics in Galatians. Minneapolis: For-
tress, 1991.
———. Paul and the Gift. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
———. “Πνευματικός in the Social Dialect of Pauline Christianity.” In
The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins: Essays in Honor of James D. G.
Dunn, edited by Graham N. Stanton, Stephen C. Barton, and Bruce
W. Longenecker, 157–67. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.
———. “Stoic Physics and the Christ-­Event: A Review of Troels Engberg-­
Pedersen, Cosmology and the Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material
Spirit.” JSNT 33, no. 4 (2011): 406–­14.
Barr, James. “Paul and the LXX: A Note on Some Recent Work.” JTS 45,
no. 2 (1994): 593–­601.
Barrett, C. K. First Epistle to the Corinthians. 2nd ed. London: Contin-
uum, 1994.
———. “Paul and the ‘Pillar’ Apostles.” In Studia Paulina, edited by
J. N. Sevenster and W. C. van Unnik, 1–­20. Haarlem: Bohn, 1953.
———. “Things Sacrificed to Idols.” NTS 11, no. 2 (1965): 138–­53.
Bibliography 219

Barrier, Jeremy W. “Jesus’ Breath: A Physiological Analysis of Πνεῦμα

within Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.” JSNT 37, no. 2 (2014): 115–­38.
Barth, Karl. The Epistle to the Romans. 1933. Translated by Edwyn C.
Hoskyns. 6th ed. London: Oxford University Press, 1968.
———. Der Römerbrief. 1922. Reprint, Zurich: Theologischer Verlag,
2008.
Bauckham, Richard. God Crucified: Monotheism and Christology in the
New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
———. Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology. Grand Rap-
ids: Baker Academic, 2015.
———. “James and the Jerusalem Church.” In The Book of Acts in Its
First Century Setting, vol. 4, Palestinian Setting, edited by Richard
Bauckham, 415–­80. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
———. “The Role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse.” EvQ 52, no. 2 (1980):
66–­83.
Baumert, Norbert. Koinonein und Metechein: Eine umfassende seman-
tische Untersuchung. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2003.
Baur, Ferdinand Christian. “Die Christuspartei in der korinthischen
Gemeinde, der Gegensatz des petrinischen und paulinischen Chris-
tenthums in der ältesten Kirche, der Apostel Petrus in Rom.” Tübin-
gen Zeitschrift für Theologie 5, no. 4 (1831): 61–­206.
———. Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles
and Teachings. 1845. Trans., London: Williams and Norgate, 1876.
Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2003.
Bazzana, Giovanni B. Having the Spirit of Christ: Spirit Possession and
Exorcism in the Early Christ Groups. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2020.
Beker, J. C. Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought.
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
———. “Recasting Pauline Theology: The Coherence-­ Contingency
Scheme as Interpretive Model.” In Pauline Theology, edited by Jou-
ette M. Bassler, 1:15–­24. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2009.
Bell, Richard H. “Sacrifice and Christology in Paul.” JTS 53, no. 1
(2002): 1–­27.
Belleville, Linda L. “The Challenges of Translating Αρσενοκοι̂ται and
Μαλακοί in 1 Corinthians 6.9: A Reassessment in Light of Koine
Greek and First-­ Century Cultural Mores.” BT 62, no. 1 (2011):
22–­29.
Berquist, Jon L. “Critical Spatiality and the Construction of the Ancient
World.” In Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and
 220 Bibliography

Historical Constructs, edited by David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt,

14–­29. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
Berryman, Sylvia. “Aristotle on Pneuma and Animal Self-­ Motion.”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 23 (2002): 85–­97.
Best, Ernest. “The Use and Non-­Use of Pneuma by Josephus.” NovT 3,
no. 3 (1959): 218–­25.
Betz, Hans Dieter, ed. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation: Includ-
ing the Demotic Spells: Texts. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996.
Betz, Otto. Offenbarung und Schriftforschung in der Qumransekte.
Tübingen: Mohr, 1960.
Bird, Michael F. An Anomalous Jew: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and
Romans. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016.
Bird, Michael, Ruben A. Bühner, Jörg Frey, and Brian Rosner, eds. Paul
within Judaism: Perspectives on Paul and Jewish Identity. Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2023.
Bitner, Bradley J. Paul’s Political Strategy in 1 Corinthians 1–­4: Constitu-
tion and Covenant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Blackwell, Ben C., John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston. Paul and the
Apocalyptic Imagination. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Block, Daniel I. “The Prophet of the Spirit: The Use of Rwh in the Book
of Ezekiel.” JETS 32, no. 1 (1989): 27–­49.
Bockmuehl, Markus. Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the
Beginning of Christian Public Ethics. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
Boer, Martinus C. de. The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in
1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,
1988.
———. “Paul, Theologian of God’s Apocalypse.” Interpretation 56, no. 1
(January 2002): 21–­33.
Bos, Abraham P. “Aristotle on Soul and Soul-­‘Parts’ in Semen (GA 2.1,
735a4–­22).” Mnemosyne 62, no. 3 (2009): 378–­400.
———. “‘Pneuma’ as Quintessence of Aristotle’s Philosophy.” Hermes
141, no. 4 (2013): 417–­34.
Botner, Max. “The Essence of a Spiritual House: Misunderstanding
Metaphor and the Question of Supersessionism in 1 Peter.” JBL 139,
no. 2 (2020): 409–­25.
Boyarin, Daniel. Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-­Christianity. Phil-
adelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
———. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1997.
Boylan, Michael. “The Galenic and Hippocratic Challenges to Aristot-
le’s Conception Theory.” Journal of the History of Biology 17, no. 1
(1984): 83–­112.
Bibliography 221

Brown, Alexandra R. Cross and Human Transformation: Paul’s Apoca-

lyptic Word in 1 Corinthians. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.
———. “Kairos Gathered: Time, Tempo, and Typology in I Corinthi-
ans.” Interpretation 72, no. 1 (2018): 43–­55.
Buell, Denise Kimber, and Caroline Johnson Hodge. “The Politics of
Interpretation: The Rhetoric of Race and Ethnicity in Paul.” JBL 123
(2004): 235–­51.
Butticaz, Simon. “Vers une anthropologie universelle? La crise galate:
Fragile gestion de l’ethnicité Juive.” NTS 61, no. 4 (2015): 505–­24.
Byers, Andrew. “The One Body of the Shema in 1 Corinthians: An
Ecclesiology of Christological Monotheism.” NTS 62, no. 4 (2016):
517–­32.
Callan, Terrance. “The Background of the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15:20,
29, 21:25).” CBQ 55, no. 2 (1993): 284–­97.
Camp, Claudia V. “Storied Space, or, Ben Sira ‘Tells’ a Temple.” In
Imagining Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical
Constructs, edited by David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt, 64–­80.
London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
Campbell, Douglas A. “An Attempt to Be Understood: A Response to
the Concerns of Matlock and Macaskill with The Deliverance of God.”
JSNT 34, no. 2 (2011): 162–­208.
———. The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Rereading of Justification
in Paul. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
———. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2014.
———. The Quest for Paul’s Gospel: A Suggested Strategy. London: T&T
Clark, 2005.
Catchpole, David R. “Paul, James and the Apostolic Decree.” NTS 23,
no. 4 (1977): 428–­44.
Charlesworth, James H. The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research. Mis-
soula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976.
Chow, John K. Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in
Corinth. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992.
Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. The First Letter to the Corinthians.
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
Ciraolo, Leda Jean. “Supernatural Assistants in the Greek Magical
Papyri.” In Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, edited by Marvin Meyer
and Paul Mirecki, 279–­96. Boston: Brill Academic, 1995.
Clarke, Andrew D. Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-­
Historical and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1–­6. 1993. Reprint,
Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2006.
Cohen, Shaye J. D. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties,
Uncertainties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.
 222 Bibliography

———. Josephus in Galilee and Rome: His Vita and Development as a

Historian. Boston: Brill, 2002.
Collins, John J. “The Yaḥad and ‘the Qumran Community.’” In Bibli-
cal Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb,
edited by Judith Lieu and Charlotte Hempel, 81–­96. Leiden: Brill
Academic, 2006.
Concannon, Cavan W. “The Archaeology of the Pauline Mission.” In
All Things to All Cultures: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans,
edited by Mark Harding and Alanna Nobbs, 57–83. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2013.
———. “Negotiating Multiple Modes of Religion and Identity in Roman
Corinth.” In The First Urban Churches: Roman Corinth, edited by
James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn, 2:85–­104. Atlanta: SBL Press,
2016.
———. “When You Were Gentiles”: Specters of Ethnicity in Roman Corinth
and Paul’s Corinthian Correspondence. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2014.
Conger, George Perrigo. Theories of Macrocosms and Microcosms in the
History of Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1922.
Conzelmann, Hans. First Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle
to the Corinthians. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.
Crawford, Sidnie White. The Temple Scroll and Related Texts. Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2000.
Crawford, Sidnie White, and Cecilia Wassen, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls at
Qumran and the Concept of a Library. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Croasmun, Matthew. The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in
Romans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Cross, Anthony R. “Spirit-­and Water-­Baptism in 1 Corinthians 12.13.”
In Dimensions of Baptism: Biblical and Theological Studies, edited by
Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, 120–­48. London: Blooms-
bury, 2003.
Cruse, D. A. Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986.
Cullmann, Oscar. Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception
of Time. 1946. Translated by Floyd V. Filson. Rev. ed. London: SCM
Press, 1964.
Cuming, G. J. “ΕΠΟΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝ (1 Corinthians 12.13).” NTS 27
(1981): 283–­85.
Curd, Patricia. “New Work on the Presocratics.” J. Hist. Phil. 49, no. 1
(2011): 1–­37.
Das, A. Andrew. “Paul and Works of Obedience in Second Temple Juda-
ism: Romans 4:4–­5 as a ‘New Perspective’ Case Study.” CBQ 71,
no. 4 (2009): 795–­812.
Bibliography 223

Dasen, Véronique. “Childbirth and Infancy in Greek and Roman Antiq-

uity.” In A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds,
edited by Beryl Rawson, 291–­314. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell,
2011.
Daube, David. “Societas as Consensual Contract.” Cambridge Law Jour-
nal 6, no. 3 (1938): 381–­403.
Davies, J. P. Paul among the Apocalypses? An Evaluation of the “Apoca-
lyptic Paul” in the Context of Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Litera-
ture. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
Davies, Philip R. The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the
“Damascus Document.” Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1983.
Davies, W. D. Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in
Pauline Theology. 1965. Reprint, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
Davila, James R. “The Macrocosmic Temple, Scriptural Exegesis, and
the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice.” DSD 9 (2002): 1–­19.
De Harven, Vanessa. “The Resistance to Stoic Blending.” Rhizomata 6,
no. 1 (2018): 1–­23.
DeMaris, Richard E. The New Testament in Its Ritual World. New York:
Routledge, 2008.
Den Hollander, William. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome:
From Hostage to Historian. Leiden: Brill, 2014.
Deroche, Michael P. “The Rûah ‘elōhîm in Gen 1:2c: Creation or
Chaos?” In Ascribe to the Lord: Biblical and Other Essays in Memory of
Peter C. Craigie, edited by Lyle Eslinger, 303–­18. Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 2009.
De Vries, Pieter. “The Relationship between the Glory of YHWH and
the Spirit of YHWH in the Book of Ezekiel, Part 1.” J. Bib. Pneum.
Res. 5 (2013): 109–­27.
———. “The Relationship between the Glory of YHWH and the Spirit
of YHWH in Ezekiel 33–­48, Part 2.” Old Testament Essays 28, no. 2
(2015): 326–­50.
Dillon, John M. The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220. 1977.
Reprint, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
DiTommaso, Lorenzo. “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity
(Part I).” Currents in Research 5, no. 2 (2007): 235–­86.
Doering, Lutz. “The Commissioning of Paul: Light from the Prophet
Jeremiah on the Self-­Understanding of the Apostle?” In Jeremiah’s
Scriptures: Production, Reception, Interaction, and Transformation,
edited by Hindy Najman and Konrad Schmid, 544–­65. Leiden: Brill,
2016.
Donaldson, Terence L. Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s
Convictional World. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.
 224 Bibliography

———. “Supersessionism and Early Christian Self-­Definition.” JJMJS,

no. 3 (2016): 1–­32.
Downing, F. Gerald. “Review: Paul’s Koinonia with the Philippians: A
Socio-­Historical Investigation of a Pauline Economic Partnership.”
JSNT 37, no. 5 (2015): 87–­88.
Downs, David J. The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusa-
lem in Its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts. Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 2016.
Dreytza, Manfred. Der Theologische Gebrauch von Ruah im Alten Testa-
ment: Eine wort-­und satzsemantische Studie. Giessen: Brunnen, 1990.
Dunn, James D. G. Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A Re-­Examination of the
New Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in Relation to Pente-
costalism Today. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970.
———. “‘Baptized’ as Metaphor.” In Baptism, the New Testament and the
Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour of R. E. O.
White, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, 294–310.
Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1999.
———. “Do We Undermine the Law?” In Paul and the Mosaic Law,
edited by James D. G. Dunn, 287–­308. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2001.
———. “How New Was Paul’s Gospel? The Problem of Continuity and
Discontinuity.” In Gospel in Paul: Studies on Corinthians, Galatians
and Romans for Richard N. Longenecker, edited by L. Ann Jervis and
Peter Richardson, 367–­88. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
———. Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic
Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New
Testament. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.
———. “The New Perspective on Paul.” 1983. In The New Perspective on
Paul, 99–­120. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008.
———. “Paul: Apostate or Apostle of Israel?” ZNW 89 (1998): 256–­71.
———. Romans 1–­8. Vol. 38A. Waco: Thomas Nelson, 1988.
———. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.
Dunne, John Anthony. “Suffering in Vain: A Study of the Interpretation
of Πάσχω in Galatians 3.4.” JSNT 36, no. 1 (2013): 3–­16.
Dupont, Jacques. Gnosis: La connaissance religieuse dans les Épîtres
de Saint Paul. Paris: Louvain, 1949.
Eastman, Susan Grove. Paul and the Person: Reframing Paul’s Anthro-
pology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017.
———. “Whose Apocalypse? The Identity of the Sons of God in Romans
8:19.” JBL 121, no. 2 (2002): 263–­77.
Ego, Beate, K. Ehlers, Armin Lange, and Peter Pilhofer, eds. Gemeinde
ohne Tempel / Community without Temple. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1999.
Bibliography 225

Ehrensperger, Kathy. “Between Polis, Oikos, and Ekklesia: The Chal-

lenge of Negotiating the Spirit World (1 Cor 12:1–­11).” In The First
Urban Churches 2: Roman Corinth, edited by James R. Harrison and
L. L. Welborn, 105–­32. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2016.
———. “Narratives of Belonging: The Role of Paul’s Genealogical Rea-
soning.” Early Christianity 8, no. 3 (2017): 373–­92.
———. Paul at the Crossroads of Cultures. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
———. “The Pauline Ἐκκλησίαι and Images of Community in Enoch
Traditions.” In Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Sec-
ond Temple Judaism, edited by Gabriele Boccaccini and Carlos A.
Segovia, 183–­218. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Ekem, John David K. “‘Spiritual Gifts’ or ‘Spiritual Persons’? 1 Corin-
thians 12:1a Revisited.” Neotestamentica 38, no. 1 (2004): 54–­74.
Elder, Linda Bennett. “The Woman Question and Female Ascetics
among Essenes.” BA 57, no. 4 (1994): 220–­34.
Eliade, Mircea. Mephistopheles and the Androgyne: Studies in Religious
Myth and Symbol. London: Sheed and Ward, 1965.
Ellis, E. Earle. “II Corinthians v. 1–­10 in Pauline Eschatology.” NTS 6,
no. 3 (1960): 211–­24.
Emilsson, Eyjólfur K. Plotinus on Sympatheia. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2015.
Engberg-­Pedersen, Troels. Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The
Material Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
———. Paul and the Stoics. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000.
———. “A Stoic Understanding of Pneuma in Paul.” In Philosophy at the
Roots of Christianity, 321–­44. Working Papers 2. Copenhagen: Uni-
versity of Copenhagen, 2006.
Esler, Philip Francis. Community and Gospel in Luke-­Acts: The Social and
Political Motivations of Lucan Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1989.
———. Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul’s Let-
ter. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
———. “Paul and Stoicism: Romans 12 as a Test Case.” NTS 50, no. 1
(2004): 106–­24.
Evans, Craig A. “Covenant in the Qumran Literature.” In The Concept of
the Covenant in the Second Temple Period, edited by Stanley E. Porter
and Jacqueline C. R. De Roo, 55–­80. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Eyl, Jennifer. “Semantic Voids, New Testament Translation, and Anach-
ronism: The Case of Paul’s Use of Ekklesia.” MTSR 26, no. 4 (2014):
315–­39.
Fatehi, Mehrdad. The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul: An
Examination of Its Christological Implications. Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2000.
 226 Bibliography

Fee, Gordon D. “Είδωλόϑυτα Once Again: An Interpretation of 1 Cor-

inthians 8–­10.” Biblica 61, no. 2 (1980): 172–­97.
———. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerd-
mans, 2014.
———. God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011.
Feuillet, André. “La demeure Céleste et la destinée des Chrétiens.
Exégèse de ‘II Cor.’, V, 1–­10 et contribution à l’étude des fondements
de l’eschatologie paulinienne.” RSR 44, no. 3 (1956): 360–­402.
Finlan, Stephen. The Background and Content of Paul’s Cultic Atone-
ment Metaphors. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004.
Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Reprint.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
Fisk, Bruce N. “ΠOPNEYEΙΝ as Body Violation: The Unique Nature of
Sexual Sin in 1 Corinthians 6.18.” NTS 42, no. 4 (1996): 540–­58.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. First Corinthians. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2008.
Frank, Erich. Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer: Ein Kapitel aus der
Geschichte des Griechischen Geistes. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1962.
Fredriksen, Paula. “How Jewish Is God? Divine Ethnicity in Paul’s The-
ology.” JBL 137, no. 1 (2018): 193–­212.
———. Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2017.
———. “Review: Paul and the Faithfulness of God.” CBQ 77, no. 2
(2015): 387–­91.
———. When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2018.
Freudenthal, Gad. Soul, Vital Heat, and Connate Pneuma. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999.
Frey, Jörg. “Demythologizing Apocalyptic? On N. T. Wright’s Paul,
Apocalyptic Interpretation, and the Constraints of Construction.” In
God and the Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pau-
line Theology of N. T. Wright, edited by Michael F. Bird, Christoph
Heilig, and J. Thomas Hewitt, 489–­532. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2015.
———. “Paul’s View of the Spirit in the Light of Qumran.” In The Dead
Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature, edited by Jean-­ Sebastien Rey,
237–­60. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
Frey, Jörg, and John R. Levison. “The Origins of Early Christian Pneu-
matology: On the Rediscovery and Reshaping of the History of
Religions Quest.” In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures
of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jörg Frey and
John R. Levison, 1–­38. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Bibliography 227

Furnish, Victor Paul. Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Gaca, Kathy L. The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political
Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 2003.
Gäckle, Volker. Die Starken und die Schwachen in Korinth und in Rom.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005.
Gager, John G. Reinventing Paul. New York: Oxford University Press,
2002.
Garroway, Joshua D. Paul’s Gentile-­Jews: Neither Jew nor Gentile, but
Both. New York: Macmillan, 2012.
Gärtner, Bertil E. The Temple and the Community in Qumran and the
New Testament: A Comparative Study in the Temple Symbolism of the
Qumran Texts and the New Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1965.
Gaston, Lloyd. Paul and the Torah. 1987. Reprint, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf
& Stock, 2006.
Gathercole, Simon J. “Paul’s Christology.” In The Blackwell Compan-
ion to Paul, edited by Stephen Westerholm, 172–­87. Malden, Mass.:
Wiley-­Blackwell, 2011.
Gaventa, Beverly R. “The Singularity of the Gospel: A Reading of Gala-
tians.” In Pauline Theology, edited by Jouette M. Bassler, 1:147–­59.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
———. “Thinking from Christ to Israel: Romans 9–­11 in Apocalyptic
Context.” In Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination, edited by Ben C.
Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, 239–­56. Minneap-
olis: Fortress, 2016.
Geeraerts, Dirk. Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010.
Gerdmar, Anders. Roots of Theological Anti-­Semitism: German Biblical
Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and
Bultmann. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Goodrich, John K. “Until the Fullness of the Gentiles Comes In: A
Critical Review of Recent Scholarship on the Salvation of ‘All Israel’
(Romans 11:26).” JSPL 6, no. 1 (2016): 5–­32.
Gottdiener, Mark. “A Marx for Our Time: Henri Lefebvre and the Pro-
duction of Space.” Sociological Theory 11 (1993): 129–­36.
Grindheim, Sigurd. “Election and the Role of Israel.” In God and the
Faithfulness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology
of N. T. Wright, edited by Michael F. Bird, Christoph Heilig, and J.
Thomas Hewitt, 329–­46. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015.
Gruen, Erich S. “Christians as a ‘Third Race’: Is Ethnicity at Issue?”
In Christianity in the Second Century: Themes and Developments, ed.
 228 Bibliography

James Carleton Paget and Judith Lieu, 241–­42. Cambridge: Cam-

bridge University Press, 2017.
———. “The Use and Abuse of the Exodus Story.” In Heritage and Hel-
lenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, 41–­72. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 2002.
Gunkel, Hermann. The Influence of the Holy Spirit: The Popular View
of the Apostolic Age and the Teaching of the Apostle Paul; A Biblical-­
Theological Study. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.
———. Die Wirkungen des Heiligen Geistes nach der populären Anschau-
ung der Apostlischen Zeit und nach der Lehre des Apostels Paulus. Göt-
tingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1888.
Gupta, Nijay K. “Which ‘Body’ Is a Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19)? Paul
beyond the Individual/ Communal Divide.” CBQ 72, no. 3 (2010):
518–­36.
———. Worship That Makes Sense to Paul: A New Approach to the Theology
and Ethics of Paul’s Cultic Metaphors. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010.
Haenchen, Ernst. “The Book of Acts as Source Material for the History
of Earliest Christianity.” In Studies in Luke–­Acts, edited by J. Louis
Martyn and Leander E. Keck, 258–­78. Nashville: Abingdon, 1966.
Hafemann, Scott J. Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/
Spirit Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3.
Tübingen: Mohr, 1995.
———. “Paul’s ‘Jeremiah’ Ministry in Reverse and the Reality of the New
Covenant.” In Paul’s Message and Ministry in Covenant Perspective:
Selected Essays, 107–­15. Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2015.
Hahm, David E. The Origins of Stoic Cosmology. Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 1977.
Hainz, Josef. Koinonia: “Kirche” als Gemeinshaft bei Paulus. Regens-
burg: Putset, 1982.
Hamilton, James M., Jr. “God with Men in the Torah.” WTJ 65, no. 1
(2003): 113–­33.
Hansen, Bruce. All of You Are One: The Social Vision of Galatians 3.28,
1 Corinthians 12.13 and Colossians 3.11. London: T&T Clark, 2010.
Harink, Douglas. “J. L. Martyn and Apocalyptic Discontinuity: The Trin-
itarian, Christological Ground of Galatians in Galatians 4:1–­11.” Jour-
nal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 7, nos. 1–­2 (2017): 101–­11.
Harrington, Hannah K. The Purity and Sanctuary of the Body in Second
Temple Judaism. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019.
Hays, Richard B. The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter
of Israel’s Scripture. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005.
———. Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. New Haven: Yale Uni-
versity Press, 1989.
Bibliography 229

Hayward, C. T. R. “‘The LORD Is One’: Reflections on the Theme

of Unity in John’s Gospel from a Jewish Perspective.” In Early Jew-
ish and Christian Monotheism, edited by Loren T. Stuckenbruck and
Wendy North, 138–­54. London: T&T Clark, 2004.
Heim, Erin M. Adoption in Galatians and Romans: Contemporary Met-
aphor Theories and the Pauline Huiothesia Metaphors. Leiden: Brill
Academic, 2017.
Heliso, Desta. “Divine Spirit and Human Spirit in Paul in the Light
of Stoic and Biblical-­Jewish Perspectives.” In Spirit and Christ in
the New Testament and Christian Theology: Essays in Honor of Max
Turner, edited by I. Howard Marshall, Cornelis Bennema, and Volker
Rabens, 156–­76. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.
Hellerman, Joseph H. The Ancient Church as Family. Minneapolis: For-
tress, 2001.
Hemer, Colin. The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989.
Hempel, Charlotte. “The Treatise on the Two Spirits and the Literary
History of the Rule of the Community.” In Dualism in Qumran,
edited by Géza G. Xeravits, 102–­20. London: T&T Clark, 2010.
Hicks-­Keeton, Jill. Arguing with Aseneth: Gentile Access to Israel’s Living
God in Jewish Antiquity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Hildebrandt, Wilf. An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God. Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993.
Hill, Wesley. Paul and the Trinity: Persons, Relations, and the Pauline
Letters. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
Himmelfarb, Martha. Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apoca-
lypses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Hockey, Katherine M., and David G. Horrell, eds. Ethnicity, Race, Reli-
gion: Identities and Ideologies in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and
in Modern Biblical Interpretation. New York: T&T Clark, 2018.
Hodge, Caroline E. Johnson. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship
and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2007.
Hogeterp, Albert L. A. Paul and God’s Temple: A Historical Interpre-
tation of Cultic Imagery in the Corinthian Correspondence. Leuven:
Peeters, 2006.
Holmberg, Bengt. “The Methods of Historical Reconstruction in the
Scholarly ‘Recovery’ of Corinthian Christianity.” In Christianity at
Corinth: The Quest for the Pauline Church, edited by Edward Adams
and David G. Horrell, 255–­71. Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
2004.
 230 Bibliography

———. “Understanding the First Hundred Years of Christian Identity.”

In Exploring Early Christian Identity, edited by Bengt Holmberg,
1–32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.
Hooker, Morna D. “‘The Sanctuary of His Body’: Body and Sanctuary
in Paul and John.” JSNT 39, no. 4 (2017): 347–­61.
Horbury, William. “Extirpation and Excommunication.” VT 35, no. 1
(1985): 13–­38.
Horky, Phillip Sidney. “Cosmic Spiritualism among the Pythagoreans,
Stoics, Jews and Early Christians.” In Cosmos in the Ancient World,
edited by Phillip Sidney Horky, 270–­ 94. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019.
Horn, Friedrich Wilhelm. Das Angeld des Geistes: Studien zur paulin-
ischen Pneumatologie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992.
———. “Holy Spirit.” In Anchor Bible Dictionary, edited by David Noel
Freedman, 3:260–­80. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Horrell, David G. “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth:
Imagining New Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre.”
NTS 50, no. 3 (2004): 349–­69.
———. Ethnicity and Inclusion: Religion, Race, and Whiteness in Con-
structions of Jewish and Christian Identities. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2020.
———. “‘No Longer Jew or Greek’: Paul’s Corporate Christology and
the Construction of Christian Community.” In Christology, Contro-
versy, and Community, edited by David G. Horrell and C. M. Tuck-
ett, 321–­44. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
———. The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence Interests and
Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement. Edinburgh: T&T Clark,
1996.
———. Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Eth-
ics. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Horsley, Richard. 1 Corinthians. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998.
Hubbard, Moyer. “Honey for Aseneth: Interpreting a Religious Sym-
bol.” JSP 8, no. 16 (1997): 97–­110.
Hurd, John Coolidge. The Origin of I Corinthians. 2nd ed. Macon: Mer-
cer University Press, 1983.
Hutchinson, John, and Anthony D. Smith, eds. Ethnicity. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996.
Ierodiakonou, Katerina. “The Greek Concept of Sympatheia and Its Byz-
antine Appropriation in Michael Psellos.” In The Occult Sciences in
Byzantium, edited by Paul Magdalino and Maria Mavroudi, 97–117.
Geneva: La Pomme d’Or, 2006.
Bibliography 231

Immendörfer, Michael. Ephesians and Artemis: The Cult of the Great

Goddess of Ephesus as the Epistle’s Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2017.
Instone-­Brewer, David. Prayer and Agriculture. Vol. 1, Traditions of the
Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2004.
———. Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE.
Tübingen: Mohr, 1992.
Irons, Charles Lee. The Righteousness of God: A Lexical Examination of
the Covenant-­Faithfulness Interpretation. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2015.
Isaacs, Marie E. The Concept of Spirit: A Study of Pneuma in Hellenistic
Judaism and Its Bearing on the New Testament. London: Heythrop
College, 1976.
Jaeger, Werner. “Das Pneuma im Lykeion.” Hermes 48, no. 1 (1913):
29–­74.
Jervis, L. Ann. The Purpose of Romans: A Comparative Letter Structure
Investigation. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.
Jewett, Robert. Dating Paul’s Life. London: SCM Press, 1979.
Johnson, Ethan. “Sacrilege and Temple Imagery.” PhD diss., University
of St Andrews, 2022.
Kahn, Charles H. Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. Indianapolis: Hack-
ett, 2001.
Kaminsky, Joel, and Mark Reasoner. “The Meaning and Telos of Israel’s
Election: An Interfaith Response to N. T. Wright’s Reading of Paul.”
HTR, no. 4 (2019): 421–­46.
Käsemann, Ernst. “Geist und Buchstabe.” In Paulinische Perspektiven,
235–­85. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1969.
———. “The Pauline Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.” In Essays on New
Testament Themes, translated by W. J. Montague, 108–­35. London:
SCM Press, 1964.
Keddie, G. Anthony. “Triclinium Trialectics: The Triclinium as Con-
tested Space in Early Roman Palestine.” HTR 113, no. 1 (2020):
63–­88.
Keesmaat, Sylvia C. Paul and His Story: Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1999.
Kempthorne, R. “Incest and the Body of Christ: A Study of 1 Corinthi-
ans 6:12–­20.” NTS 14, no. 4 (1968): 568–­74.
Kihara, Shino. “The Physiology of Pneuma and the Relationship between
Aristotle and Greek Medicine.” Journal of Philosophy and Ethics in
Health Care and Medicine 11 (December 2017): 33–­40.
 232 Bibliography

Klauck, Hans Josef. The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide

to Graeco-­Roman Religions. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
Klawans, Jonathan. Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and
Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2006.
Koch, Robert. Der Geist Gottes im Alten Testament. Frankfurt: Peter
Lang, 1991.
Koester, Craig R. The Dwelling of God: The Tabernacle in the Old Tes-
tament, Intertestamental Jewish Literature, and the New Testament.
Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1989.
Kooten, George H. van. “St. Paul on Soul, Spirit, and the Inner Man.”
In The Afterlife of the Platonic Soul, edited by John M. Dillon and
Maha Elkaisy-­Friemuth, 25–44. Leiden: Brill, 2009.
Lanci, John R. A New Temple for Corinth: Rhetorical and Archaeological
Approaches to Pauline Imagery. New York: Peter Lang, 1997.
Langer, Ruth. Cursing the Christians? A History of the Birkat HaMinim.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Laurentin, André. “Le pneuma dans la doctrine de Philon.” ETL 27,
no. 2 (1951): 390–­437.
Lee, Michelle V. Paul, the Stoics, and the Body of Christ. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Lefebvre, Henri. La présence et l’absence: Contribution à la théorie des
représentations. Paris: Casterman, 1980.
———. The Production of Space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-­Smith.
Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell, 1992.
Leisegang, Hans. Der heilige Geist: Das Wesen und Werden der mystisch-­
intuitiven Erkenntnis in der Philosophie und Religion der Griechen.
Leipzig: Teubner, 1919.
Levenson, Jon D. Creation and the Persistence of Evil. 1988. Reprint,
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
———. Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.
———. Sinai and Zion. New York: HarperCollins, 1987.
———. “The Temple and the World.” The Journal of Religion 64, no. 3
(1984): 275–­98.
Levine, Michael P. “Divine Unity and Superfluous Synonymity.” Journal
of Speculative Philosophy 4, no. 3 (1990): 211–­36.
Levison, John R. “The Debut of the Divine Spirit in Josephus’s Antiqui-
ties.” HTR 87, no. 2 (1994): 123–­38.
———. Filled with the Spirit. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009.
———. The Holy Spirit before Christianity. Waco: Baylor University Press,
2019.
Bibliography 233

———. The Spirit in First-­Century Judaism. Boston: Brill Academic,

2002.
———. “The Spirit in Its Second Temple Context: An Exegetical Anal-
ysis of the Pneumatology of N. T. Wright.” In God and the Faithful-
ness of Paul: A Critical Examination of the Pauline Theology of N. T.
Wright, edited by Michael F. Bird, Christoph Heilig, and J. Thomas
Hewitt, 439–­62. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015.
Lewis, Robert Brian. Paul’s “Spirit of Adoption” in Its Roman Imperial
Context. London: T&T Clark, 2016.
Lieu, Judith. Christian Identity in the Jewish and Graeco-­Roman World.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Lim, Timothy. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction. 2nd ed.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
Lincicum, David. Paul and the Early Jewish Encounter with Deuteronomy.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010.
Linebaugh, Jonathan A. God, Grace, and Righteousness in Wisdom of Sol-
omon and Paul’s Letter to the Romans: Texts in Conversation. Boston:
Brill, 2013.
———. “Not the End: The History and Hope of the Unfailing Word in
Romans 9–­11.” In God and Israel: Providence and Purpose in Romans
9–­11, edited by Todd D. Still, 141–­64. Waco: Baylor University Press,
2017.
Liu, Yulin. Temple Purity in 1–­2 Corinthians. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2013.
Lloyd, Geoffrey. “Pneuma between Body and Soul.” Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 13 (2007): S135–­46.
Lo Sardo, Domenico. “Ex 25:8–­9 MT-­LXX: Textual Differences or Dif-
ferent Hermeneutics? The Divine Dwelling on the Mountain and/or
in a Sanctuary.” LASBF 69 (2019): 79–­98.
Long, Anthony A. “Philo on Stoic Physics.” In Philo of Alexandria and
Post-­Aristotelian Philosophy, edited by Francesca Alesse, 121–­ 40.
Leiden: Brill, 2008.
———. “The Stoics on World-­ Conflagration and Everlasting Recur-
rence.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 23, no. 5 (1985): 13–­37.
Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol. 1, Trans-
lations of the Principal Sources, with Philosophical Commentary. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Longenecker, Richard N. “The Focus of Romans: The Central Role of
5:1–­8:39 in the Argument of the Letter.” In Romans and the People of
God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee, edited by Sven K. Soderlund
and N. T. Wright, 49–69. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
 234 Bibliography

Lonie, Iain M. The Hippocratic Treatises “On Generation,” “On the Nature
of the Child,” “Diseases IV.” Edited by Gerhard Baader, Fridolf Kudlien,
Charles Lichtenthaeler, and Klaus D. Fischer. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1981.
Lubac, Henri de. History and Spirit: The Understanding of Scripture
according to Origen. Translated by Anne Englund Nash. San Fran-
cisco: Ignatius Press, 2007.
Macaskill, Grant. “Dynamic Reciprocity and Ontological Affinity in the
Pauline Account of Solidarity.” IJST 22, no. 1 (2020): 18–­28.
———. “History, Providence and the Apocalyptic Paul.” SJT 70, no. 4
(2017): 409–­26.
———. “Incarnational Ontology and the Theology of Participation.”
In “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of Union and
Participation, edited by Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Vanhoozer, and
Constantine R. Campbell, 87–­102. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
———. Living in Union with Christ: Paul’s Gospel and Christian Moral
Identity. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2019.
———. “Review Article: The Deliverance of God.” JSNT 34, no. 2 (2011):
150–­61.
———. “Union(s) with Christ: Colossians 1:15–­ 20.” Ex Auditu 33
(2017): 92–­107.
———. Union with Christ in the New Testament. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2013.
———. “The Way the One God Works: Covenant and Ethics in 1 Corin-
thians.” In One God, One People, One Future: Essays in Honor of N. T.
Wright, edited by John Anthony Dunne and Eric Lewellen, 112–­25.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018.
MacDonald, Nathan. Deuteronomy and the Meaning of Monotheism.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. “Pantheism.” In Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited
by Paul Edwards, 5:34. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
———. Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1988.
Malcolm, Matthew R. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reversal in 1 Corinthians:
The Impact of Paul’s Gospel on His Macro-­Rhetoric. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2013.
———. “The Structure and Theme of First Corinthians in Recent Schol-
arship.” Currents in Biblical Research 14, no. 2 (2016): 256–­69.
Malherbe, Abraham J. “The Apologetic Theology of the Preaching of
Peter.” Restoration Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1970): 205–­23.
Malkin, Irad, ed. Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity. Cambridge,
Mass.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001.
Marchal, Joseph A., ed. Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspec-
tives and Methods. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012.
Bibliography 235

Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1995.
Martin, Troy W. “Paul’s Pneumatological Statements and Ancient Med-
ical Texts.” In The New Testament and Early Christian Literature in
Greco-­Roman Context: Studies in Honor of David E. Aune, edited by
John Fotopoulos, 105–­28. Leiden: Brill, 2006.
Martyn, J. Louis. “Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul’s Letter to the Gala-
tians.” NTS 31, no. 3 (1985): 410–­24.
———. “Events in Galatia: Modified Covenantal Nomism versus God’s
Invasion of the Cosmos in the Singular Gospel: A Response to J. D. G.
Dunn and B. R. Gaventa.” In Pauline Theology, edited by Jouette M.
Bassler, 1:160–­79. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991.
———. Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commen-
tary. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
———. “Paul and Christian Judaism.” In Theological Issues in the Letters
of Paul, 1–­6. Nashville: Abingdon, 1997.
———. “Paul and His Jewish-­Christian Interpreters.” USQR 42, no. 1–­2
(1988): 1–­15.
———. “World without End or Twice-­ Invaded World?” In Shaking
Heaven and Earth: Essays in Honor of Walter Brueggemann and
Charles B. Cousar, edited by Walter Brueggemann, Christine Roy
Yoder, and Charles B. Cousar, 117–­32. Louisville: Westminster John
Knox, 2005.
Mason, Steve. “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Catego-
rization in Ancient History.” JSJ 38 (2007): 457–­512.
———. Josephus, Judea, and Christian Origins: Methods and Categories.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008.
Matlock, R. Barry. Unveiling the Apocalyptic Paul: Paul’s Interpreters and
the Rhetoric of Criticism. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996.
McKelvey, R. J. The New Temple: The Church in the New Testament. Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1969.
McKnight, Scot. “Saints Re-­Formed: The Extension and Expansion of
Hagios in Paul.” In One God, One People, One Future: Essays in Honor
of N. T. Wright, edited by John Anthony Dunne and Eric Lewellen,
112–­25. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018.
McNutt, Paula M. “‘Fathers of the Empty Spaces’ and ‘Strangers For-
ever’: Social Marginality and the Construction of Space.” In Imagin-
ing Biblical Worlds: Studies in Spatial, Social and Historical Constructs,
edited by David M. Gunn and Paula McNutt, 30–­50. London: Shef-
field Academic Press, 2002.
Meeks, Wayne A. “‘And Rose up to Play’: Midrash and Paraenesis in
1 Corinthians 10:1–­22.” JSNT 16 (1982): 64–­78.
———. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.
 236 Bibliography

———. “The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Ear-

liest Christianity.” History of Religions 13, no. 3 (1974): 165–­208.
———. “Social Functions of Apocalyptic Language in Pauline Christian-
ity.” In Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East,
edited by David Hellholm, 687–705. Tübingen: Mohr, 1983.
Menzies, Robert P. The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology:
With Special Reference to Luke-­Acts. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991.
Meredith, Christopher. “Taking Issue with Thirdspace: Reading Soja,
Lefebvre, and the Bible.” In Constructions of Space III: Biblical Spati-
ality and the Sacred, edited by Jorunn Økland, J. Cornelis de Vos, and
Karen J. Wenell, 75–­103. New York: T&T Clark, 2016.
Milgrom, Jacob. “Sin-­Offering or Purification-­Offering.” VT 21, no. 2
(1971): 237–­39.
Millis, Benjamin W. “The Social and Ethnic Origins of the Colonists in
Early Roman Corinth.” In Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies
on Religion and Society, edited by James C. Walters, Daniel N. Schow-
alter, and Steven J. Friesen, 13–­35. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Mitchell, Margaret Mary. Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An
Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corin-
thians. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993.
Moberly, R. W. L. “Toward an Interpretation of the Shema.” In Theolog-
ical Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Brevard S. Childs, edited by Christo-
pher R. Seitz and Kathryn Greene-­McCreight, 124–­44. Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 1999.
———. “‘Yahweh Is One’: The Translation of the Shema.” In Studies in
the Pentateuch, edited by J. A. Emerton, 209–­15. Leiden: Brill, 1990.
Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1996.
Moore, George F. Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The
Age of the Tannaim. 1927. Reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
1997.
Moule, C. F. D. “St. Paul and Dualism: The Pauline Conception of Res-
urrection.” NTS 12, no. 2 (1966): 106–­23.
Mroczek, Eva. “How Not to Build a Temple: Jacob, David, and the
Unbuilt Ideal in Ancient Judaism.” Journal for the Study of Judaism
in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Period 46, no. 4–­5 (2015):
512–­46.
Munzinger, André. Discerning the Spirits: Theological and Ethical Herme-
neutics in Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Murphy-­O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology.
3rd ed. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002.
Nanos, Mark D. “Paul’s Relationship to Torah in Light of His Strategy
‘to Become Everything to Everyone’ (1 Cor 9:19–­23).” In Reading
Bibliography 237

Corinthians and Philippians within Judaism, 4:52–­92. Eugene, Ore.:

Cascade, 2017.
Nanos, Mark D., and Magnus Zetterholm, eds. Paul within Judaism:
Restoring the First-­Century Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: For-
tress, 2015.
Naselli, Andrew David. “Is Every Sin outside the Body except Immoral
Sex? Weighing whether 1 Corinthians 6:18b Is Paul’s Statement or a
Corinthian Slogan.” JBL 136, no. 4 (2017): 969–­87.
———. “The Structure and Theological Message of 1 Corinthians.” Pres-
byterion 44, no. 1 (2018): 98–­114.
Nasrallah, Laura S. “Spatial Perspectives: Space and Archaeology in
Roman Philippi.” In Studying Paul’s Letters: Contemporary Perspec-
tives and Methods, edited by Joseph A. Marchal, 53–­74. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2012.
Neve, Lloyd R. The Spirit of God in the Old Testament. Cleveland, Tenn.:
CPT Press, 2011.
Newman, Carey C. Paul’s Glory-­Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric.
Leiden: Brill, 1992.
Newman, Hillel I. “The Death of Jesus in the Toledot Yeshu Literature.”
JTS 50, no. 1 (1999): 59–­79.
Newsom, Carol A. “‘Sectually Explicit’ Literature from Qumran.” In The
Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, edited by William Henry Propp,
Baruch Halpern, and David Noel Freedman, 167–­88. Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 1990.
———. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community
at Qumran. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
———. Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition. Atlanta: Schol-
ars Press, 1985.
Newton, Michael. The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of
Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Nickelsburg, George W. E. “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Reve-
lation in Upper Galilee.” JBL 100, no. 4 (1981): 575–­600.
———. “Polarized Self-­Identification in the Qumran Texts.” In Defin-
ing Identities: We, You, and the Other in the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited
by Florentino García Martínez and Mladen Popović, 23–­31. Leiden:
Brill, 2007.
Nikkanen, Markus. “Participation in Christ: Paul and Pre-­Pauline Eucha-
ristic Tradition.” PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2018.
Nongbri, Brent. “The Concept of Religion and the Study of the Apostle
Paul.” JJMJS, no. 2 (2015): 1–­26.
O’Donnell, Matthew Brook. “Two Opposing Views on Baptism with/
by the Holy Spirit and of 1 Corinthians 12.13: Can Grammatical
Investigation Bring Clarity?” In Baptism, the New Testament and the
 238 Bibliography

Church, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Anthony R. Cross, 311–36.

Sheffield: T&T Clark, 1999.
Ogereau, Julien M. Paul’s Koinonia with the Philippians: A Socio-­
Historical Investigation of a Pauline Economic Partnership. Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
———. “A Survey of Κοινωνία and Its Cognates in Documentary
Sources.” NovT 57, no. 3 (2015): 275–­94.
Økland, Jorunn, J. Cornelis de Vos, and Karen J. Wenell, eds. Construc-
tions of Space III: Biblical Spatiality and the Sacred. New York: T&T
Clark, 2016.
Orlinsky, H. M. “The Plain Meaning of Rûach in Genesis 1:2.” JQR 48,
no. 2 (1957): 174–­82.
Orr, Peter. Christ Absent and Present: A Study in Pauline Christology.
Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014.
Pachoumi, Eleni. “Divine Epiphanies of Paredroi in the Greek Magi-
cal Papyri.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 51, no. 1 (2011):
155–­65.
Paige, Terence. “Who Believes in ‘Spirit’? Πνεῦµα in Pagan Usage and
Implications for the Gentile Christian Mission.” HTR 95, no. 4
(2002): 417–­36.
Pate, Marvin C. Adam Christology as the Exegetical and Theological Sub-
structure of 2 Corinthians 4:7–­5:21. Lanham, Md.: University Press of
America, 1991.
Perrier, Emmanuel. “The Election of Israel Today: Supersessionism,
Post-­Supersessionism, and Fulfillment.” Translated by Matthew
Levering. Nova et Vetera 7, no. 2 (2009): 485–­504.
Perrin, Nicholas. Jesus the Temple. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010.
Phillips, Thomas E. Paul, His Letters, and Acts. Peabody, Mass.: Hen-
drickson, 2009.
Pitts, Andrew W., and Seth Pollinger. “The Spirit in Second Temple Jew-
ish Monotheism and the Origins of Early Christology.” In Christian
Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary Contexts for the
New Testament, edited by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts,
2:135–­76. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
Porter, Stanley E. Idioms of the Greek New Testament. 2nd ed. Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1994.
———. Paul in Acts. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2001.
Porter, Stanley E., and Anthony R. Cross, eds. Baptism, the New Testa-
ment and the Church: Historical and Contemporary Studies in Honour
of R. E. O. White. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1999.
Preisendanz, Karl, ed. Papyri Graecae Magicae: Die Griechischen Zauber-
papyri. 2 vols. 1928–­31. Reprint, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001.
Bibliography 239

Preisigke, Friedrich. Die Gotteskraft der frühchristlichen Zeit. Berlin:

de Gruyter, 1922.
Preus, Anthony. “Galen’s Criticism of Aristotle’s Conception Theory.”
Journal of the History of Biology 10, no. 1 (1977): 65–­85.
Puech, Émile. “L’esprit saint à Qumran.” Liber Annuum 49 (1999):
283–­97.
Pula, Melissa. “Rethinking the Community as Temple: Discourse and
Spatial Practice in the Community Rule (1QS).” PhD diss., Univer-
sity of Denver, 2015.
Rabens, Volker. “The Development of Pauline Pneumatology: A
Response to F. W. Horn.” BZ 43, no. 2 (1999): 161–­79.
———. “The Holy Spirit and Deification in Paul: A ‘Western’ Perspec-
tive.” In The Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testa-
ment, edited by Predrag Dragutinović, Karl-­Wilhelm Niebuhr, and
James Buchanan Wallace, 187–­220. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016.
———. The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and Empow-
ering for Religious-­Ethical Life. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013.
———. “Pneuma and the Beholding of God: Reading Paul in the Con-
text of Philonic Mystical Traditions.” In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration,
and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by
Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, 293–­330. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Rad, Gerhard von. Genesis: A Commentary. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: West-
minster John Knox, 1973.
Radice, Roberto. “Philo and Stoic Ethics: Reflections on the Idea of
Freedom.” In Philo of Alexandria and Post-­Aristotelian Philosophy,
edited by Francesca Alesse, 141–­68. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Rajak, Tessa. Josephus. 2nd ed. London: Bristol Classical Press, 2002.
Reasoner, Mark. The Strong and the Weak: Romans 14.1–­15.13 in Con-
text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Regev, Eyal. “Cherchez les femmes: Were the Yaḥad Celibates?” DSD
15, no. 2 (2008): 253–­84.
———. “Community as Temple: Revisiting Cultic Metaphors in Qumran
and the New Testament.” BBR 28, no. 4 (2018): 604–­31.
Reinhardt, Karl. Kosmos und Sympathie: Neue Untersuchungen über Pose-
idonios. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1926.
Reynolds, Benjamin E., and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, eds. The Jewish
Apocalyptic Tradition and the Shaping of New Testament Thought.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017.
Richardson, Peter. “On the Absence of ‘Anti-­Judaism’ in 1 Corinthians.”
In Anti-­Judaism in Early Christianity: Paul and the Gospels, edited
by Peter Richardson and David Granskou, 1:59–­74. Waterloo, ON:
Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1986.
 240 Bibliography

Richardson, Philip N. Temple of the Living God: The Influence of Helle-

nistic Philosophy on Paul’s Figurative Temple Language Applied to the
Corinthians. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick, 2018.
Rist, John M. “On Greek Biology, Greek Cosmology and Some Sources
of Theological Pneuma.” In Man, Soul and Body: Essays in Ancient
Thought from Plato to Dionysius, 27–­40. Aldershot, England: Vario-
rum, 1996.
Robertson, Paul Mark. “De-­ Spiritualizing Pneuma: Modernity, Reli-
gion, and Anachronism in the Study of Paul.” Method and Theory in
the Study of Religion 26, no. 4–­5 (2014): 365–­83.
Robinson, John A. T. The Body. London: SCM Press, 1952.
Rodriguez, Rafael, and Matthew Thiessen. The So-­Called Jew in Paul’s
Letter to the Romans. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Rogers, E. R. “ΕΠΟΤΙΣΘΗΜΕΝ Again.” NTS 29, no. 1 (1983): 139–­42.
Root, Michael, and Risto Saarinen, eds. Baptism and the Unity of the
Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. “Body, Tension, and Sumpatheia.” In Senecan
Drama and Stoic Cosmology, 93–­112. Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1989.
Rosner, Brian S. “Temple and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 5.” TynBul 42,
no. 1 (1991): 137–­45.
———. “Temple Prostitution in 1 Corinthians 6:12–­20.” NovT 40, no. 4
(1998): 336–­51.
Rothaus, Richard M. Corinth, the First City of Greece: An Urban History
of Late Antique Cult and Religion. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Rowe, C. Kavin. “One and Many in Greek Religion.” In Oneness and
Variety, edited by Adolf Portman and Rudolf Ritsema, 37–67. Leiden:
Brill, 1980.
———. One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Tradi-
tions. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.
———. “Romans 10:13: What Is the Name of the Lord?” Horizons in
Biblical Theology 22, no. 2 (2000): 135–­73.
Rowland, Christopher. The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Juda-
ism and Early Christianity. 1982. Reprint, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf &
Stock, 2002.
Salles, Ricardo. God and Cosmos in Stoicism. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009.
Sambursky, Samuel. Physics of the Stoics. 1959. Reprint, Princeton: Prince­
ton University Press, 2014.
Sampley, Paul J. Pauline Partnership in Christ: Christian Community and
Commitment in Light of Roman Law. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
Sanders, E. P. “The Dead Sea Sect and Other Jews: Commonalities,
Overlaps, and Differences.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical
Bibliography 241

Context, edited by Timothy H. Lim, 7–­43. Edinburgh: Bloomsbury

T&T Clark, 2001.
———. Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
———. Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Reli-
gion. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977.
———. “Paul’s Attitude toward the Jewish People.” USQR 33, no. 3–­4
(1978): 175–­87.
Sanders, Jack T. The Jews in Luke-­Acts. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.
Sanger, Dieter. Antikes Judentum und die Mysterien. Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1980.
Scheer, Tanja Susanne. “Tempelprostitution in Korinth?” In Tempelpros-
titution im Altertum: Fakten und Fiktionen, edited by Tanja Susanne
Scheer and Martin Lindner, 221–­66. Berlin: Verlag Antike, 2009.
Schiffman, Lawrence H. “Community without Temple: The Qumran
Community’s Withdrawal from the Jerusalem Temple.” In Gemeinde
ohne Tempel / Community without Temple, edited by Beate Ego,
Armin Lange, and Peter Pilhofer, 267–­84. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1999.
Schnelle, Udo. “1 Kor 6:14—­Eine Nachpaulinische Glosse.” NovT 25,
no. 3 (1983): 217–­19.
Schoeps, Hans-­Joachim. Paulus: Die Theologie des Apostels im Lichte der
judischen Religionsgeschichte. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1959.
Schrage, Wolfgang. Der erste Brief an die Korinther. 3rd ed. Neukirchen-­
Vluyn: Patmos Verlag, 2012.
Schreiner, Patrick. The Body of Jesus: A Spatial Analysis of the Kingdom of
Matthew. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.
———. “Space, Place and Biblical Studies: A Survey of Recent Research
in Light of Developing Trends.” CurBR 14, no. 3 (2016): 340–­71.
Schreiner, Thomas R. Law and Its Fulfillment. Grand Rapids: Baker Aca-
demic, 1998.
———. Romans. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2018.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. “Cultic Language in Qumran and in the
NT.” CBQ 38, no. 2 (1976): 159–­77.
Schweitzer, Albert. The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle. 1930. Reprint, Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
———. Die Mystik des Apostels Paulus. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1930.
Schweizer, Eduard. “Πνεῦμα, Πνευματικός.” In TDNT, edited by Ger-
hard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, translated by G. W. Bromiley,
6:389–­455. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964.
Scott, Alan. Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1994.
Sechrest, Love L. A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race. London:
T&T Clark, 2010.
 242 Bibliography

Sedley, David, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Phi-
losophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Seesemann, Heinrich. Der Begriff ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ im Neuen Testament.
Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1933.
Segal, Robert A. “In Defense of the Comparative Method.” Numen 48,
no. 3 (2001): 339–­73.
Sekki, Arthur Everett. The Meaning of Ruaḥ at Qumran. Atlanta: Schol-
ars Press, 1989.
Shepherd, David. “When He Comes, Will He Build It? Temple, Messiah
and Targum Jonathan.” Aramaic Studies 12, no. 1 (2014): 89–­107.
Simon, Marcel. “The Apostolic Decree and Its Setting in the Ancient
Church.” In Le Christianisme antique et son contexte religieux,
414–­37. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1981.
Skjærvø, Prods Oktor. The Spirit of Zoroastrianism. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2012.
Smit, J. “‘Do Not Be Idolaters’: Paul’s Rhetoric in First Corinthians
10:1–­22.” NovT 39, no. 1 (1997): 40–­53.
Smith, David Raymond. “Hand This Man over to Satan”: Curse, Exclu-
sion and Salvation in 1 Corinthians 5. London: T&T Clark, 2009.
Smith, J. M. Powis. “The Syntax and Meaning of Genesis 1:1–­3.” AJSLL
44, no. 2 (1928): 108–­15.
Smith, Jonathan Z. Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Smith, Mark S. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic
Background and the Ugaritic Texts. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2001.
Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-­and-­
Imagined Places. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1996.
Sommer, Benjamin D. The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Soulen, R. Kendall. The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Minneap-
olis: Fortress, 1996.
———. “Post-­Supersessionism.” In Dictionary of Jewish-­Christian Rela-
tions, 350–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Staden, Heinrich von. Herophilus: The Art of Medicine in Early Alexan-
dria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
Stendahl, Krister. Final Account: Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Minneap-
olis: Fortress, 1995.
Still, Todd D., and David G. Horrell, eds. After the First Urban Chris-
tians: The Social-­Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-­Five
Years Later. London: Bloomsbury, 2009.
Stirling, Andrew Mark. “Transformation and Growth: The Davidic Tem-
ple Builder in Ephesians.” PhD diss., University of Aberdeen, 2012.
Bibliography 243

Stowers, Stanley K. “The Dilemma of Paul’s Physics: Features Stoic-­

Platonist or Platonist-­Stoic?” In From Stoicism to Platonism: The Devel-
opment of Philosophy, 100 BCE–­100 CE, edited by Troels Engberg-­
Pedersen, 231–­53. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
———. A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles. 1994. Reprint,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
———. “What Is ‘Pauline Participation in Christ’?” In Redefining First-­
Century Jewish and Christian Identities: Essays in Honor of Ed Par-
ish Sanders, edited by Fabian E. Udoh, Susannah Heschel, Mark
Chancey, and Gregory Tatum, 352–­71. Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 2008.
Strong, John T. “God’s Kābôd: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book
of Ezekiel.” In The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological
Perspectives, edited by Margaret S. Odell and John T. Strong, 69–­95.
Atlanta: SBL, 2000.
Stroud, Ronald S. The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore: The Inscriptions.
Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2013.
Stuckenbruck, Loren T. “Overlapping Ages at Qumran and ‘Apocalyptic’
in Pauline Theology.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature,
edited by Jean-­Sebastien Rey, 309–­26. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
———. “Some Reflections on Apocalyptic Thought and Time in Liter-
ature from the Second Temple Period.” In Paul and the Apocalyptic
Imagination, edited by Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and
Jason Maston, 137–­56. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016.
Stuhlmacher, Peter. Der Brief an die Römer. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1998.
———. “Erwägungen zum ontologischen Charakter der kαινή kτίσις bei
Paulus.” Evangelische Theologie 27, no. 1 (1967): 1–­35.
Suh, Michael K. W. Power and Peril: Paul’s Use of Temple Discourse in
1 Corinthians. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020.
Talbert, Charles H. “Paul’s Understanding of the Holy Spirit: The Evi-
dence of 1 Corinthians 12–­14.” PRSt 11, no. 4 (1984): 95–­108.
Tengström, Sven, and Heinz-Josef Fabry. “‫חור‬.” TDOT 13:365–402.
Termini, Cristina. “Philo’s Thought within the Context of Middle Juda-
ism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Philo, edited by Adam Kame-
sar, 95–­123. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Thate, Michael J. “Paul, Phrónēsis, and Participation: The Shape of
Space and the Reconfiguration of Place in Paul’s Letter to the Phi-
lippians.” In “In Christ” in Paul: Explorations in Paul’s Theology of
Union and Participation, edited by Michael J. Thate, Kevin J. Van-
hoozer, and Constantine R. Campbell, 281–­327. Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2014.
 244 Bibliography

Theissen, Gerd. The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on

Corinth. Translated by John H. Schutz. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982.
———. “The Social Structure of Pauline Communities: Some Critical
Remarks on J. J. Meggitt, Paul, Poverty and Survival.” JSNT 24,
no. 2 (2001): 65–­84.
Thielman, Frank. “Paul’s View of Israel’s Misstep in Rom 9.32–­3: Its
Origin and Meaning.” NTS 64, no. 3 (2018): 362–­77.
Thiessen, Matthew. A Jewish Paul: The Messiah’s Herald to the Gentiles.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2023.
———. “Paul, the Animal Apocalypse, and Abraham’s Gentile Seed.” In
The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus, edited
by Lori Baron, Jill Hicks-­Keeton, and Matthew Thiessen, 65–­78.
Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018.
———. Paul and the Gentile Problem. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2016.
———. “‘The Rock Was Christ’: The Fluidity of Christ’s Body in 1 Cor-
inthians 10.4.” JSNT 36, no. 2 (2013): 103–­26.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2000.
———. “Semantics and New Testament Interpretation.” In New Testa-
ment Interpretation: Essays on Principles and Methods, edited by I.
Howard Marshall, 75–­104. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.
Thom, Johan Carl. Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus: Text, Translation and Com-
mentary. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005.
Thornton, L. S. The Common Life in the Body of Christ. 2nd ed. London:
Dacre Press, 1944.
Thorsteinsson, Runar M. Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and
Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography. Stockholm: Almqvist
& Wiksell, 2003.
———. Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study
of Ancient Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Tibbs, Clint. Religious Experience of the Pneuma: Communication with
the Spirit World in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2007.
———. “The Spirit (World) and the (Holy) Spirits among the Earliest
Christians: 1 Corinthians 12 and 14 as a Test Case.” CBQ 70, no. 2
(2008): 313–­30.
Tieleman, Teun. “The Spirit of Stoicism.” In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration,
and the Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited
by Jörg Frey and John R. Levison, 39–­62. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. “Historical Origins of the Early Christian Con-
cept of the Holy Spirit: Perspectives from the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of Antiquity:
Bibliography 245

Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jörg Frey and John R. Levi-

son, 167–­240. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957.
Tilling, Chris. Paul’s Divine Christology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015.
Timmers, Fulco. “Philo of Alexandria’s Understanding of Πνεῦμα in
Deus 33–­50.” In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the Cultures of
Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jörg Frey and
John R. Levison, 265–­92. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Tiwald, Markus. “Christ as Hilasterion (Rom 3:25): Pauline Theology
on the Day of Atonement in the Mirror of Early Jewish Thought.” In
The Day of Atonement: Its Interpretations in Early Jewish and Chris-
tian Traditions, edited by Thomas Hieke and Tobias Nicklas, 189–
209. Leiden: Brill Academic, 2011.
Todd, Robert B. Alexander of Aphrodisias on Stoic Physics. Leiden: Brill
Academic, 1997.
Toney, Carl N. Paul’s Inclusive Ethic: Resolving Community Conflicts and
Promoting Mission in Romans 14–­15. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.
Troost-­Cramer, Kathleen. “De-­Centralizing the Temple: A Rereading of
Romans 15:16.” JJMJS, no. 3 (2016): 71–­101.
Tucker, J. Brian. “Did Paul Create Christian Identity?” Criswell Theolog-
ical Review 8, no. 1 (2010): 35–­51.
———. Reading Romans after Supersessionism: The Continuation of
Jewish Covenantal Identity (New Testament after Supersessionism).
Eugene, Ore.: Cascade, 2018.
———. Remain in Your Calling: Paul and the Continuation of Social
Identities in 1 Corinthians. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf & Stock, 2011.
Turner, Max. “‘Trinitarian’ Pneumatology in the New Testament?—­
Towards an Explanation of the Worship of Jesus.” AsTJ 58, no. 1
(2003): 167–­86.
Tuval, Michael. From Jerusalem Priest to Roman Jew: On Josephus and the
Paradigms of Ancient Judaism. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013.
Van Pelt, Miles V., Walter C. Kaiser, and Daniel I. Block. “‫רוח‬.” In
NIDOTTE. Edited by Willem A. VanGemeren. Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1997.
Verbeke, G. L’évolution de la doctrine du Pneuma du stoïcisme à saint
Augustin. Paris: D. de Brouwer, 1945.
Vielhauer, Philipp. “Zum ‘Paulinismus’ der Apostelgeschichte.” EvT 10
(1950): 1–­15.
Waltke, Bruce K. “Creation Account in Genesis 1:1–­ 3.” BSac 132,
no. 528 (1975): 327–­42.
Watson, Francis. “Is There a Story in These Texts?” In Narrative Dynam-
ics in Paul: A Critical Assessment, edited by Bruce W. Longenecker,
231–39. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002.
 246 Bibliography

Weissenrieder, Annette. “The Infusion of the Spirit: The Meaning of

Ἐμφυσάω in John 20:22–­23.” In The Holy Spirit, Inspiration, and the
Cultures of Antiquity: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jörg
Frey and John R. Levison, 119–­52. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014.
Welborn, L. L. “The Corinthian Correspondence.” In All Things to
All Cultures: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans, edited by Mark
Harding and Alanna Nobbs, 205–­42. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013.
Wentling, Judith L. “Unraveling the Relationship between 11QT, the
Eschatological Temple, and the Qumran Community.” RevQ 14
(1989): 61–­73.
Westall, Michael R. “Scope of the Term ‘Spirit of God’ in the Old Testa-
ment.” Indian Journal of Theology 26, no. 1 (1977): 29–­43.
Westerholm, Stephen. “Justification by Faith Is the Answer: What Is the
Question?” CTQ 70 (2006): 197–­218.
Williams, Guy. The Spirit World in the Letters of Paul the Apostle: A Crit-
ical Examination of the Role of Spiritual Beings in the Authentic Pau-
line Epistles. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009.
Winger, Michael. “The Meaning of Πνεῦμα in the Letters of Paul: A
Linguistic Analysis of Sense and Reference.” CBQ 78, no. 4 (2016):
706–­25.
Winter, Bruce W. Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors
and Citizens. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.
Witherington, Ben, III. “Not So Idle Thoughts about Eidolothuton.”
TynBul 44, no. 2 (1993): 237–­54.
Wood, Leon J. The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf
& Stock, 1998.
Worthington, Jonathan D. Creation in Paul and Philo: The Beginning
and Before. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011.
Wright, N. T. “The Meaning of Περὶ Ἁμαρτίας in Romans 8.3.” In
Studia Biblica 1978: III. Papers on Paul and Other New Testament
Authors, edited by E. A. Livingstone, 453–­59. Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic Press, 1980.
———. The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis: Fortress,
1992.
———. Paul and the Faithfulness of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013.
———. Paul and His Recent Interpreters: Some Contemporary Debates.
Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015.
———. “The Paul of History and the Apostle of Faith.” TynBul 29
(1978): 61–­88.
———. Paul: In Fresh Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005.
———. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003.
———. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today.
New York: Harper One, 2011.
———. What Saint Paul Really Said. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
Bibliography 247

Yates, John W. The Spirit and Creation in Paul. Tübingen: Mohr Sie-
beck, 2008.
Zhmud, Leonid. Pythagoras and the Early Pythagoreans. Translated by
Kevin Windle and Rosh Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012.
Zoccali, Christopher. “‘And So All Israel Will Be Saved’: Competing
Interpretations of Romans 11.26 in Pauline Scholarship.” JSNT 30,
no. 3 (2008): 289–­318.
———. Whom God Has Called: The Relationship of Church and Israel in
Pauline Interpretation, 1920 to the Present. Eugene, Ore.: Pickwick,
2014.
 Index of Subjects

Abraham, 83, 139, 163, 182–­84, 186­–­87, 124–­26, 129, 136, 138, 152, 161, 179,
190–­91, 198–­203, 212; descendants of 203, 208
Abraham, 4, 27, 31, 66, 70–­72, 167–­68, bread, 30–­31, 122–­23, 127, 136–­38; see
171, 176–­77, 179–­83, 187, 211 also Eucharist; see also sacraments
absence, 22, 94, 103–­6, 109, 124, 129, 191, building: see edification
206
Acts of the Apostles (as subject), 139–­48, circumcision, 79, 135, 144, 146, 154, 169,
161, 167, 199 203, 214
adoption, 7, 70, 97, 176, 181, 183–­84 collection, 153, 214
air, 7, 15, 36, 59, 61–­62, 67, 70–­71, 75 community, 24, 42, 80, 213–­15
anointing, 16, 23, 30, 32, 206 continuity (of Scripture), 139, 187–­97,
anthropology, 5, 7, 16–­17, 19–­20, 87–­88; 201–­2, 215
see also relational anthropology Corinth, 53, 75, 82, 84–­85, 88, 104,
apocalyptic literature (as genre), 22, 151, 125–­27, 129, 136, 139, 160, 214
173 cornerstone: see temple
“apocalyptic” readings of Paul, 3–­4, covenant, 4, 24, 27, 44, 52, 128, 132–­33,
187–­98, 201–­2, 209–­11 144, 152–­53, 163–­66, 171, 184–­86, 190,
Apostolic Decree, 114, 139–­48, 161, 167, 197, 200, 207, 211–­12, 214–­15; see also
185, 214 new covenant
Aristotle, 13, 27, 52, 61, 64–­66, 70, 77, 178 creation, 15–­17, 32–­36, 71, 159; see also
new creation
baptism: in (or by) another person, 36, cultic imagery: see temple
119–­22, 136; in Christ, 87, 97, 120,
124; in or of the spirit, 74, 97, 104, 109, daimon, 75–­76
119–­20, 124, 136–­39; in water, 104, David, 32, 46, 107, 166, 171, 199–­200
119–­20 deification (theosis), 179
bearing of burdens, 140, 146–­47, 157, Delphi, 13, 28–­29, 48, 56
161, 170, 210 Deuteronomic (imagery), 47, 82, 85, 128,
body, 62–­63, 65–­66, 71, 106–­17, 183, 138–­39, 169
195; “of Christ,” 36, 76, 79–­81, 89, 91, discontinuity (of Scripture), 3, 190
94–­96, 100–­103, 106, 115–­17, 120–­21, divinity, 6, 29, 33, 54–­61, 76, 178

249
 250 Index of Subjects

division, 2, 45, 86–­87, 107–­8, 126, glory, 25, 36, 38–­40, 102, 111–­12, 128,
133–­34, 146, 209, 214; see also unity 199, 201, 207
down payment, 97–­98, 120, 124, 129, 159, Godfearers, 84, 133, 210
206, 208 gospel, 90, 146, 154, 161, 171–­72, 184,
189–­94, 197–­200
edification, 79–­81, 89, 92–­93, 98–­100, Greek Magical Papyrii, 13, 28, 52, 75–­76
102, 105–­17, 208–­9, 213 Greek medical texts, 13, 27, 48, 52, 71–­72,
eidolothuton (food sacrificed to idols), 77, 114; medical views of pneuma,
140–­48 27–­28, 53–­54, 60, 71–­72
Greek philosophical tradition, 2, 6–­7, 13,
ekpyrosis, 55, 159
18, 27, 48, 52, 56–­58, 60–­62, 65–­67, 71,
eschatology, 20–­22, 25–­26, 44, 49, 82–­83,
160, 178, 206
108, 144, 151, 165–­66, 169, 171, 173,
179, 186–­87, 192–­93, 202, 207, 210
Essenes: see Qumran heart, 20, 42, 71–­72, 104
ethics, 27, 55, 144, 157–­58, 200, 208 holy spirit (or Holy Spirit), 12, 14, 23–­24,
ethnicity, 2, 3, 80–­81, 154–­56, 160–­61, 32, 35, 37, 40–­41, 49, 51, 67–­68, 72–­74,
163–­65, 170–­76, 179–­87, 197–­99, 203, 91–­92, 106, 108–­9, 115–­16, 124, 126,
207–­11; see also “third race” 129, 133, 135, 137, 156, 158, 160, 163,
Eucharist (Lord’s Supper), 110, 119–­24, 202, 208
137–­38
eudaimonia, 55, 77 ideal sage: see Stoicism
Exodus (imagery), 36–­38, 110, 120–­21, identity (of the Spirit), 3, 39–­40, 73–­74,
127, 136–­39, 145, 149 117–­19, 208, 213
idolatry, 20–­21, 47–­49, 90, 96, 114,
127–­28, 137–­42, 145–­46, 215
faith, 95, 166, 176, 180, 182–­87, 200, 211
immateriality 3, 8, 26–­27, 29, 32, 70; see
family: see kinship
also substance
fellowship: see koinonia
“in Christ,” 66, 70, 79, 81, 87, 89, 91–­92,
First Corinthians (as subject), 79–­89,
100–­101, 103, 123–­24, 126, 129, 131,
92–­93, 106–­7, 115–­17, 123, 125, 129 135–­36, 152, 156, 158, 160–­61, 172–­73,
first fruits, 98, 106; see also down 176, 180, 193, 196, 199, 205–­10,
payment 213–­15
flesh (kata sarka), 23, 107, 136, 139, 164, indwelling, 51, 67–­68, 80, 89, 106–­8, 111,
167, 177, 184–­85, 191–­92; see also 124, 129
pneuma (kata pneuma) Isaac, 72, 139, 182–­84, 198, 200
food (sacrificed to idols): see eidolothuton Israel, 2–­4, 12, 21, 24, 36, 38–­39, 44–­47,
fulfillment, 4, 7–­9, 97, 131–­32, 135, 82–­83, 98–­99, 103, 123–­24, 127–­28,
166–­70, 196, 197–­201, 208–­9, 212 131–­56, 165–­70, 182, 184–­96; 197–­201;
eschatological future, 21, 25–­26,
Galatians (as subject), 5, 71, 97, 139, 165–­70, 173, 185–­86, 193, 201–­2, 210
144–­45, 147, 153, 170, 177, 180–­82,
188–­92, 202–­3 jealousy, 47, 128, 138, 215
gentiles: identity, 3, 66, 170–­75, 179–­85, Jerusalem, 99, 104, 151, 153, 173, 215
197–­99, 209; inclusion into Jewish Jerusalem Council, 199; see also Apostolic
covenant, 4, 131, 139–­48, 164–­68, Decree
210–­12; unity with Jewish believers, 4, Jerusalem Temple, 9, 19, 25–­26, 46,
80, 82–­85, 133, 146–­48, 154–­56, 161, 80–­81, 108, 117, 127, 132–­33, 135,
179–­80, 203, 214–­15 150–­51, 153–­54, 211, 214
Index of Subjects 251

Jewish messianic community, 80, 82–­85, new perspective on Paul, 2–­4, 164–­70,
146–­47, 157, 160–­61, 163, 170, 185, 172, 187–­89, 191, 198–­99, 202–­3,
198–­99, 202; unity with Gentiles, 4, 209–­13
80, 82–­85, 133, 147, 154–­56, 161, 170,
179–­80, 186, 203, 210, 214–­15 oneness, 2, 44–­47, 54, 72, 117, 160; see
Joseph and Aseneth, 30–­31 unity
Josephus, 15, 17, 19–­20, 22, 29–­30, 33, one Spirit, 1, 75–­76, 79, 112–­15, 117–­18,
39–­41, 45–­46, 48–­49, 84, 133, 148, 207 121, 129, 131, 158, 203, 213–­15
Judaism, 45, 164–­67, 170–­73
Judaizing (gentile believers), 146–­48, 157, pantheism, 57–­58
161, 214 paredroi, 75–­76
participation, 92, 123, 128, 136–­39,
kinship, 2–­3, 174–­77, 180–­84, 203, 209, 192–­93, 206, 208, 211; see also koinonia
211 Paul within Judaism, 3–­5, 8, 52, 170–­87,
koinonia, 2, 68–­69, 81, 85–­87, 89–­92, 124, 191, 197–­99, 202–­3, 209–­11
203, 212 Pauline Theology, 1–­5, 12–­13, 21, 33, 43,
krasis (blending), 61–­67, 178 51–­52, 63–­64, 71–­72, 90, 97, 112, 119,
132, 152, 157–­61, 163–­203, 209–­13
law: bearing the burdens of the law, 140, Peter, 87, 99
146–­47, 157, 161, 170, 210; Jewish law Philo, 17–­19, 29, 34–­36, 49, 84–­85
(Torah), 4, 25–­26, 48, 136, 144, 146–­48, Plato, 13, 18–­19, 52, 95, 178
159, 161, 165, 168–­70, 185, 189, 199, Plutarch, 28–­29, 62, 64–­65
210; keeping the commandments, pneuma: in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 22–­26,
48–­49, 214; walking (halakhah), 48–­49, 41–­44; for or with Israel, 184–­87, 192,
161, 166–­67, 170, 186, 199, 210 198–­99; in Greek philosophical texts,
life (breath of life), 6, 15–­17, 30–­31, 27–­31, 56–­61, 63–­64, 70; in Hellenistic
33–­35, 60, 62–­63, 69, 94 Jewish texts, 17–­21, 47–­49; in Jewish
liquid, 31–­32, 49, 119–­24 biblical and extrabiblical texts, 33–­40,
love: commandment, 126, 170, 215; 44–­46; kata pneuma (according to the
spirit, not flesh), 72, 170, 180, 182, 198;
walking in, 161, 210
in kinship, 3, 181–­84; in LXX, 16–­17;
meaning, 1–­2, 5–­8; in reproduction,
macrocosmos, 60, 63; see also temple 70–­72; see also materiality (ontology of
materiality (ontology of pneuma), 3, 6, 8, pneuma); ruach; spirit
18–­19, 26–­33, 40, 48, 51–­52, 70, 72, 77, Pneumatist hypothesis, 53, 125–­26
123–­24, 177, 179, 181, 186, 197, 206 porneia, 88, 113–­14, 127, 137, 140–­45
metaphor, 13, 16, 25, 80, 82, 92, 95, power, 16–­17, 32–­33, 38, 48, 83, 104–­6,
100–­102, 123, 152, 175, 207 114, 167, 185–­86, 205
mission, 82, 103, 153, 164, 168, 171, 173, presence, 1, 3, 6, 17, 20, 27, 31, 33, 36–­40,
182, 184–­85, 213, 215 48, 79–­81, 92–­97, 99–­106, 110–­11,
monotheism, 18, 44–­47, 57 115, 121, 124, 128–­29, 144, 150, 152,
160, 192, 201, 205–­8, 211, 213; see also
narrative, 12, 36, 85, 189, 192, 195–­97, absence; temple
199–­200, 212 Presocratic philosophers, 13, 58–­61
new covenant, 24, 80, 128, 166–­67, prophecy, 17–­18, 20, 22, 28, 42, 48, 199
185–­86 Pythagoreanism, 58–­61
new creation, 30–­31, 156, 174, 181 Pythia, 28, 48
 252 Index of Subjects

Qumran, 22–­26, 40–­44, 48–­49, 68, 141, Stoicism: generally, 52–­54, 68–­69; ideal
206–­7 sage, 68–­69; Stoic physics, 2, 35, 51–­58;
views of God, 54–­58, 67–­68; views
relational anthropology (also of pneuma, 2, 27–­29, 35–­36, 61–­67,
participatory anthropology), 87–­89, 76–­77, 157–­60, 205–­6
92, 127–­28 substance, 6, 8, 18, 26–­32, 55, 60, 63–­66,
resurrection, 91, 94, 114–­15, 160, 183, 119, 124, 178, 183, 206; see also
193, 196–­97 materiality
supersessionism, 8–­9, 80, 131–­32, 135,
righteousness, 87, 163–­64, 170, 199, 202,
148–­49, 152–­54, 163–­64, 167–­70, 186
214
sympathy (sympatheia), 61–­63, 66–­67
ritual, 8, 25, 29, 85, 89, 102, 122–­23, 128,
135, 203
Romans (as subject), 5, 82–­83, 98-­99, tabernacle, 32, 95–­97, 148–­49, 153–­54,
139, 147, 153, 165–­70, 180, 182, 191, 211
192–­95, 202–­3 temple, 4, 9, 25, 49, 80, 124–­25, 207–­8;
ruach, 15–­17, 19, 31, 34, 36, 39 Christ as temple, 79–­81, 91–­93,
100–­103, 115–­17, 127–­30, 152–­54,
212–­13; community as temple, 9,
sacraments, 27, 30–­31, 119–­24, 137–­39 25, 80, 106–­15, 212–­13; cornerstone,
sexual immorality: see porneia 98–­101, 213; foundation, 98–­100,
Shema, 44–­47, 127–­28, 156 102, 107–­8, 127, 151, 161, 213;
Sonderweg, 171, 184 macrocosmic temple, 42, 148–­54;
sons of God, 72, 121, 182, 198 presence (divine), 38–­40, 48, 81,
sonship, 181–­84, 198 100–­103, 124, 129; temple imagery,
spatial theory, 9–­10, 12, 133–­36, 154–­57, 2–­4, 79, 81–­85, 89–­92, 93–­103, 107–­9,
208–­9 127–­29, 201, 203, 207–­9, 215
spirit: anointing, 16, 23, 30, 32, 206; tension (tonos), 62, 66–­67
attributes (or qualities of disposition), “third race,” 4, 13, 79, 154–­55, 180, 209
41–­44; democratization of, 16, 31, 83, Thirdspace, 9–­10, 133–­36, 154–­57, 208–­9
102–­3, 207; eschatological restoration, time, 103–­6, 139, 189, 199–­203
21–­22, 24–­26, 34, 39, 184, 186, 202, Torah: see law
207; human spirit, 5, 7, 16, 17, 19, transcendence, 2, 4, 9, 19, 81, 133, 154,
104–­5; as mediating the presence of 155–­56, 161, 163, 165, 173, 176, 203,
Christ, 79–­81, 86–­87, 91–­98, 100–­103, 210; see also “third race”
103–­6, 107–­15, 124–­29, 160, 207–­8; trinity (trinitarian), 73, 117–­18, 191
as person, 68–­69, 73–­74, 117–­19;
prophetic (of prophecy), 16–­18, 20, 22, unity, 1–­4, 44–­45, 55, 60–­61, 63, 81–­85,
28–­29, 42, 44, 48, 56, 77, 126, 207; see 107–­8, 129, 131–­36, 203, 205, 213–­15
also, holy spirit (Holy Spirit), pneuma
spirit world, 72–­74 water, 27, 29–­30, 31–­32, 104, 107, 119–­24,
spiritual (and spiritualization), 4, 7–­9, 206
79, 107, 122–­27, 131–­32, 135–­38, 160, wind, 15–­17, 33–­34, 54
164–­65, 172, 179–­80, 183, 197, 201; see wisdom, 20–­23, 42, 44, 48–­49, 67–­69
also fulfillment world soul, 62–­63
spiritual gifts, 76, 93, 112, 116–­18, worship, 2, 4, 13, 21, 49, 57, 80–­83, 91–­92,
125–­27, 129, 195 100–­101, 103–­4, 144–­46, 148, 152,
stars, 178–­79, 183 155–­57, 160, 203, 206–­15
 Index of Authors

Achtemeier, P. J., 144 Callan, T., 144

Ådna, J., 108, 151 Campbell, D. A., 187–­88, 192–­97, 201–­2,
Albright, W. F., 148 212
Alexander, P., 42 Chow, J. K., 88
Arnold, C., 28, 74–­75, 213 Ciampa, R., 82, 127–­28
Auerbach, E., 128 Clarke, A. D., 104
Cohen, S. J. D., 19, 171
Barclay, J. M. G., 3, 8, 21, 46, 84, 132, Collins, J., 22, 187
139, 147, 164, 167, 174, 180–81, Concannon, C., 84, 136, 175
192–93, 210, 215 Conger, G. P., 60
Barrett, C. K., 90, 140–­42, 152 Cullmann, O., 94
Barrier, J., 26, 71–­72, 133, 177 Cuming, G. J., 121
Bauckham, R., 22, 45–­46, 118, 141–­45
Baumert, N., 89, 91 Das, A. A., 165
Baur, F. C., 141
Davies, J. P., 187
Beker, J. C., 196, 202
Davies, W. D., 145
Bell, C., 123
Davila, J. R., 42, 148
Berquist, J., 9
de Boer, M. C., 188
Best, E., 20, 30, 40
de Vries, P., 16, 38–­39
Bird, M. F., 154, 170
Donaldson, T., 131, 161
Bitner, B., 84–­85
Block, D., 15–­16, 34 Downs, D. J., 153
Bockmuehl, M., 142–­45 Dunn, J. D. G., 2–­3, 8, 90, 102, 109,
Bos, A. P., 56, 70 121–­23, 164–­67, 170, 190
Botner, M., 152 Dunne, J. A. D., 72
Boyarin, D., 154–­55, 171
Brown, A. R., 139 Eastman, S. G., 87, 121
Buell, D. K., 172, 174 Ehrensperger, K., 171–­74
Byers, A., 46, 127 Ellis, E. E., 94

253
 254 Index of Authors

Engberg-­Pedersen, T., 18, 26, 29, 51–­52, Horrell, D. G., 10, 85, 90, 173
158, 192 Horsley, R., 88
Esler, P., 51, 143, 175 Hurd, J. C., 114, 140
Evans, C., 24
Eyl, J., 6 Isaacs, M., 17, 21, 29–­30, 36, 39

Fee, G. D., 80, 88, 105, 110, 123, 141, Johnson Hodge, C., 7, 64, 136, 172–­77,
145 180–­83, 185–­87, 210
Feuillet, A., 95
Finlan, S., 102
Kaminsky, J., 167–­68
Fiorenza, E. S., 8, 97
Käsemann, E., 8, 27, 119–­20, 187
Fishbane, M., 98
Kempthorne, R., 110
Fredriksen, P., 80, 81, 154, 166, 171–74,
Klawans, J., 9
180, 210
Koester, C. R., 96
Frey, J., 13–­14, 23, 41–­42, 44, 170, 190
Furnish, V. P., 86
Lanci, J. R., 127
Gaca, K. L., 113 Lee, M. V., 51, 55–­56, 62–­63, 65
Gäckle, V., 147, 210 Lefebvre, H., 10–­12, 134–­35
Garroway, J. D., 155 Leisegang, H., 19
Gärtner, B., 8–­9, 25, 111 Levenson, J. D., 44–­45, 100, 148–­49, 151,
Gaston, L., 171, 184 163
Gathercole, S., 103 Levison, J., 13–­14, 16, 18, 20, 23, 29,
Gaventa, B. R., 187, 189, 196 36–­37, 42, 48, 54, 61, 97, 113, 192
Grindheim, S., 169 Lincicum, D., 85, 128
Gruen, E. S., 155, 200 Linebaugh, J., 20–­21, 49, 164, 168
Gunkel, H., 13, 113 Liu, Y., 109
Gupta, N., 80, 82, 96, 102, 110, 112 Long, A. A., 35, 52, 55, 61–­65, 159
Longenecker, R. N., 195
Lo Sardo, D., 40
Hafemann, S. J., 153, 186
Hainz, J., 90
Harink, D., 190–­91 Macaskill, G., 3, 85, 91, 98, 99, 128, 159,
Hays, R. B., 138–­39 183, 193
Heim, E. M., 101 Malcolm, M., 86, 125
Heliso, D., 6 Martin, D., 8, 26, 113–­14
Hellerman, J., 136 Martin, T., 26, 28
Hemer, C., 142 Martyn, J. L., 187–­93, 197–­98, 201
Hempel, C., 22, 41 Matlock, R. B., 187
Hicks-­Keeton, J., 30 Meeks, W. A., 137, 139, 188
Hill, W., 118 Menzies, R., 17
Hockey, K. M., 172 Meredith, C., 11–­12, 135
Hogeterp, A., 9, 107 McKelvey, R. J., 151
Holmberg, B., 172 McKnight, S., 111
Hooker, M. D., 96, 98, 115–­17 McNutt, P., 9–­11
Horky, P., 58–­60 Mitchell, M. M., 63, 86–­87
Horn, F., 27, 30, 56, 119–­20, 125 Moberly, R., 47, 85
Index of Authors 255

Moore, G., 20, 40 Stuckenbruck, L., 21, 187–­88, 200

Moule, C. F. D., 93 Suh, M. K. W., 128
Murphy-­O’Connor, J., 10
Termini, C., 18
Nanos, M. D., 146, 170–­72 Thiessen, M., 8, 27, 52, 64, 66, 70, 84,
Naselli, A. D., 113, 125 138, 142, 166, 171, 173–­74, 177–­87
Newman, C., 38 Thiselton, A., 5–­7, 90, 110, 115
Newman, H., 147–­48 Thorsteinsson, R., 51–­52, 84, 157–­58
Newsom, C., 22, 42–­43, 203 Tibbs, C., 43, 48, 72–­74
Nickelsburg, G., 23, 150 Tigchelaar, E., 14, 23–­24
Nikkanen, M., 89, 92 Timmers, F., 18, 32
Tiwald, M., 151
Ogereau, J., 89–­92 Todd, R. B., 55, 66
Troost-­Cramer, K., 9, 81
Tucker, J. B., 132, 156, 172
Pachoumi, E., 28, 75
Turner, M., 118
Paige, T., 6, 28–­29, 53
Pate, M. C., 94
Porter, S., 109, 120, 142 Van Kooten, G., 51
Verbeke, G., 18, 29
Rabens, V., 27, 29–­30, 124
Rajak, T., 19 Watson, F., 196–­97
Reasoner, M., 147, 167–­68 Wentling, J., 25–­26
Regev, E., 25 Williams, G., 72–­74, 118
Richardson, P., 57 Winger, M., 5–­6
Rist, J., 56 Witherington, B., 141, 145
Robertson, J. A. T., 94 Wood, L., 15
Robertson, P., 26–­27, 53 Worthington, J., 35
Rogers, E. R., 121 Wright, N. T., 2, 57, 80, 102, 110, 112,
Rosenmeyer, T. G., 61–­62 118, 124, 132, 154–­55, 164–­65,
Rosner, B., 82, 105, 113, 127–­28 167–­70, 178, 190, 197–­201, 212
Rowe, C. K., 58, 119, 157–­58
Yates, J., 34
Sanders, E. P., 24, 84, 164, 168, 196
Schiffman, L., 25–­26 Zoccali, C., 153, 165–­66
Schnelle, U., 114
Schreiner, P., 10, 156
Schreiner, T., 167, 186
Schweizer, E., 6
Sedley, D. N., 52–­53, 55, 61–­65,
159
Sekki, A., 23, 41
Smith, J. Z., 175
Soja, E., 10–­12, 134–­35, 156, 208
Sommer, B., 100, 150
Stendahl, K., 215
Stowers, S., 52, 64, 174
 Index of Ancient Sources

Hebrew Bible 30:30 32

32:6 145
Genesis 33:4–­8 36
1:2 33, 35 33:7–­18 38
2:7 34, 60 33:12–­14 36
2:24 113 35:21 17
3:9 212 36:8 150
6:3 34 40:34–­38 36, 38
7:22 34
12:8 212 Leviticus
13:4 83 8:12 32
15:5 178–­79 9:6 40
22:16–­18 178–­79 17–­19 142–­43
41:8 17 17:8–­13 142
21:12 32
Exodus 26:1 96
3:13 19 26:12 110
12:15–­20 127
13:20 36 Numbers
14:1 36 5:3 110
14:19–­20 37 9:15 95
15:11 45 11:16–­30 31
16:10 36 11:29 16
16:31 31 16:42 38
20:3 45 27:16 16
23:20–­24 36 Deuteronomy
25:8–­9 40, 110 6:4 44, 47
25:9 149 6:7 2
26:1, 31 149–­50 6:14–­15 47
29:45–­46 40 12:11 82, 100, 150

257
 258 Index of Ancient Sources

12:21, 26 82 Psalms
14:23–­24 82, 212 11:4 131
16:2, 6 82, 212 25:2 99
16:11 82 25:20 99
17:7 128 31:1 99
19:15 128 31:17 99
19:19 128 33:6 34
21:21 128 51:11 32
23:2–­9 128 51:13LXX 23
26:2 99 68:16 150
32:4 139 71:1 99
32:17 139 104:29–­30 34
32:21 47, 138 118:21–­22 99
33:18–­23 150 119:116 99
Judges Proverbs
6:34 97 8 159
1 Samuel Isaiah
16:13 31 2:2–­3 173
1 Kings 2:18 96
6:29 150 6:1–­8 149
8:3–­13 38 8:14 98–­99
8:10–­11 38 11:2 41
8:13 150 18:7 82
8:17 148 19:14 31
8:27 148, 150 25:6 173
8:29 39, 40, 100 27:9 186
8:30 148 28:5 99
2 Kings 28:16 98–­99
2:9 31 29:10 31, 122
17:15 47 31:7 96
32:1–­8 34
1 Chronicles
32:15 31, 122
6:32 95
44–­45 108
9:23 95
44:1–­5 34
2 Chronicles 44:3 31, 122
6:20 39, 82 45:20 46, 47
33:15 47 45:21 144
Job 46:6 96
6:4 17 49:1–­6 153
15:13 17 54:6 17
26:13 34 54:12 152
33:4 34 57:13 47
34:14–­15 34 59:20–­21 185–­86, 202
Index of Ancient Sources 259

60:6–­9 173 Joel

61:1 32 2:28 31, 122
63:9–­14 36–­37 3:1–­3LXX 21, 83
63:10–­11 23 Amos
66:1 108 9:11–­12 143
Jeremiah Micah
1:5 153 2:12 46
7:14 82
12:15–­16LXX 144, 147 Zechariah
31 49 2:11aLXX 144
31:33 167, 185–­86 2:15aLXX 144
4:9 108
Ezekiel 6:8 17
1:1–­28 149 6:12 108
3:12, 14 39 8:21–­23 173
8:3 39 12:10 31
8:7–­16 39
10:20 149 Haggai
11:1 39 2:1–­9 38, 152
24 39 2:3–­5 37, 192
27:22 2 Zephaniah
33:13–­16 150 3:9–­10 83
36 49 3:11 99
36:25 47 Malachi
36:25–­27 31, 167, 185 1:11 82
37:1 38, 39 2:15 31
37:5–­6 97
37:22 45 New Testament
37:24a 45
37:28 25 Matthew
39:21 111 3:6 120
39:29 17, 122 21:42 99, 152
41:15–­26 150 Mark
43:5 38–­39 1:5, 9 120
45:4 150 12:10–­11 99, 152
Daniel 14:58 96
5:12 23 Luke
6:3LXX 23 4:18 32
6:11 151 20:17–­18 98–­99
Hosea John
1:11 46 2:21 117
3:5 144 3:5 32
8:4 47 4:21–­24 104
 260 Index of Ancient Sources

4:24 2, 212 9:1 74

7:37–­39 32 9:2–­3 167–­68
14:16 76 9:6 168
15:26 76 9:16 180
Acts 9:33 98–­99
4:11 98, 99, 152 11:1 168
8:39 32 11:12 168
10:38 32 11:25 171
15 199 11:26 165
15:10 147 11:26–­27 202
15:16–­20 141-­43 11:27 185–­86
15:28 147 11:28 200
15:28–­29 140–­41, 143–­44 11:29 132
17 53 12–­14 195
21:25 144 12:1–­21 112
13:8, 10 170
Romans 13:14 97
1:9–­25 49 14–­15 147, 210
2:28–­29 166 14:15 161
3:25 102–­3
14:17 74
3:30 198
14:20–­23 161
3:31 147
15:1 147
4:11–­12 182
15:7 161, 214
4:16 198
15:10 83
5–­8 193–­95
15:13 74
5:1–­5 152
15:14–­32 214
5:3–­4 43
15:16 74, 83
5:5 74
15:16–­33 153
7:4 124, 199
7:12 166, 199 1 Corinthians
8:2 43 1:1 83
8:3 49, 102 1:2 79, 82, 83, 89, 103, 111,
8:4 167, 170 133, 212, 215
8:9 74, 208, 211 1:4–­7 87
8:11 106 1:9 83, 87, 89–­91, 126, 212
8:14–­17 121 1:10 86, 112
8:15 97 1:12–­13 87, 107–­8
8:16 121, 181 1:13 120
8:19–­23 159 1:23 99
8:23 97, 160 1:23–­24 83, 212
8:26 74 1:26 83
8:34 103 1:30 87
8:38 74 2:9–­10 133, 189
9–­11 165–­70 2:12 74, 118, 158
Index of Ancient Sources 261

2:16 112 8:7 49

3:1–­23 107 8:11–­12 214
3:6 122 8:12 87, 111
3:7 107 8:20 49
3:8 122 9–­11 210
3:9 107, 127 9:2 116
3:10 127, 152 9:12 161
3:11 98–­100, 102, 107 9:13–­14 133
3:16 49, 80, 98, 106, 110, 116, 9:19–­23 146, 161
124, 127, 129, 211 10:1 127, 133
3:17 92, 100, 105, 127 10:1–­4 36, 120–­24, 137, 201
3:22–­23 86, 88, 107, 211 10:1–­10 136–­139
4:9 74 10:4 211
5:1 96, 111, 128, 141 10:7 145
5:1–­8 127–­28 10:8 141
5:2 88 10:11–­11:1 136–­139
5:3–­7 104–­6, 109 10:12 137
5:6–­11 111, 133 10:16 90, 110, 123, 138,
5:7 127 208
5:8 127, 215 10:18 133, 136, 138
5:13 109, 133, 215 10:20 74, 138, 139
6:3 74 10:21 74, 122–­23
6:11 118 10:21–­22 215
6:12–­20 108, 127 10:22 128, 133, 138, 156
6:14 114 10:23 127
6:15 109, 111–­12, 115 10:23–­30 125
6:15–­19 87, 88, 109–­10, 10:31–­33 161
115 10:32 127, 214
6:17 104, 112, 158, 206, 213 11:24 110
6:18 141 11:25 122, 185
6:19 12, 74, 80, 92, 106, 110, 11:25–­29 122–­23
116, 129, 208 11:27 110
6:20 109 11:29–­30 138
7–­10 139–­48 11:30 128
7:14 88 11:36 160
7:17–­20 156 12:1–­3 137
7:19 79, 135, 146–­47, 12:2 49, 85
161, 214 12:3 74, 136
8:1 126, 161, 215 12:4–­6 118, 213
8:4 49, 141 12:10–­11 74, 118
8:4–­6 133 12:11 93, 215
8:6 86, 118, 128, 12:12–­13 36, 97, 101,
156, 159, 213 119–­25, 138
 262 Index of Ancient Sources

12:13 1, 32, 74, 79, 119–­20, 2:1–­10 153

136, 206, 211, 215 2:9 152
12:27 100–­101, 104, 110, 116, 2:12–­14 161, 214
121, 129, 208 2:19 199
13 126 3:7 176
13:1 74 3:8 139, 200
13:2 126 3:19 74
14:3–­26 127 3:20 198
14:12 116, 126 3:22, 26 182, 189
14:26 49, 127 3:24–­25 188
14:37 126 3:27 97, 124
15:44 160, 179, 183 3:27–­28 213
16:1–­5 153, 214 3:28 79, 135, 158
16:14 126, 161, 215 3:29 72, 198
4:5 181
2 Corinthians
4:6 72, 74, 181, 188, 208
2:14 82
4:18–­24 182
2:14–­18 159
4:28–­29 182
3:1 112
5:13 161
3:3–­6 49, 133, 166
5:13–­26 121
3:5 36
5:19 141
3:6 185
6:1–­2 210
3:17–­18 152
6:2, 5 147, 170
3:18 38, 102, 207
6:15 135, 181
4:13–­14 200
4:16–­5:10 93–­98, 154 Ephesians
5:1 93, 96 2:11–­22 212–­13
5:1–­5 98, 102, 152 2:20 99
5:3–­13 208 2:20–­21 152, 212–­13
5:4 97 2:21 213
5:5 98, 106, 124, 208 2:22 9
5:8 95, 98, 106, 208 5:18 32
5:17 181 5:18–­19 195
6:16 92, 129, 133, 208 Philippians
8:1–­9:15 214 1:5 90
11:4 74, 76, 118, 158 1:27 74
11:14 74 2:1 90
13:13 74, 90–­91, 119, 158 2:2 112
Galatians 2:15 179
1:8 74 3:3 2, 212
1:12 189 4:2 112
1:15 153 4:14–­20 92
1:15–­16 189, 191 Colossians
2 145 1:18 159
Index of Ancient Sources 263

3:16–­17 195 9:8 149

1 Thessalonians 9:15 95
1:5 74 13–­15 49
1:8 82 13:1 21
2:17 104 13:5–­6 21
14:22 20
2:19–­20 116
14:27 21
4:3 141
15:1–­5 21
4:8 74
15:2–­3 49
4:9 189
18:24 148
1 Timothy
Pseudepigrapha
2:8 82
Apocalypse of Moses
Philemon 43:5 35
17 90 Apocalypse of Sedrach
1 Peter 1:18 39
2:4–­8 98, 152 Apocalypse of Zephaniah
2:5 9 1 39
2 Baruch
1 John 21:4 35
5:8 32 23:5 35
Jude 48:23–­24 46
11–­12 141 1 Enoch
14:1–­11 149–­50
Revelation
14:22-­23 150
2:14, 20 140
15:4–­6 178
2:24 140
70:2 22
7:17 40
90:28–­29 151–­52
21:14, 22 152
91:1 22
Early Jewish Literature 4 Ezra (2 Esdras 3–­14)
10:45–­55 154
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 10:54 151
2 Maccabees 14:22 22
7:22–­23 35 Joseph and Aseneth
Sirach 8:5 31, 119
16:24–­26 35 8:9 119
39:6 119 8:11 31
45:8 148 12:1–­3 35
50:7 148 16:7–­9 30
Wisdom of Solomon 16:4 35
1:4–­7 20 21:13–­14 119
1:7 29, 35 Jubilees
2:11 20 2:2 178
5:15–­23 21 15:31 178
8:22–­25 20 25:14 22
 264 Index of Ancient Sources

Pseudo Philo (LAB) 26–­27 29

18:10 39 27 35
18:11 22 47 41
27:9 97 67 29
Letter of Aristeas Her. (Who Is the Heir?)
160 2, 45 69 48
Sibylline Oracles 95 19
4:46 35 112 149
Testament of Judah 229 19
24:2 35 263 48
264–­65 42
Josephus
Leg. (Allegorical Interpretation)
Antiquities
1.33 34
3.181 148
1.99 19
4.118 48
2.2 29
4.200 46
Legat. (On the Embassy to Gaius)
4.212 2, 45
281–­82 84
6.211 29
Migr. (On the Migration of
6.222 48
Abraham)
7:367 150
169 19
8.114 15, 39
Mos. (On the Life of Moses)
10.238 41
1.175 18
13.72 46
2.98–­103 148
Jewish War
2.161 19
5.212–­13 148
Mut. (On the Change of Names)
7.420–­32 46
11 19
Against Apion
27 19
2.23 46
Opif. (On the Creation of the
Philo of Alexandria World)
Det. (That the Worse Attacks the 29 29
Better) 135 18
160 19 Plant. (On Planting)
Deus. (That God Is Unchangeable) 18 29
11 19 18–­26 18
52 19 21–­22 19
55 19 Post. (On the Posterity of Cain)
56 29 21 19
69, 108–­9 19 175 19
Gig. (On Giants) QE (Questions and Answers on
19–­31 18 Exodus 1, 2)
22 29 2.29 18
22–­23 35 2.105 48
23 41 QG (Questions and Answers on
25 76 Genesis 1, 2, 3, 4)
Index of Ancient Sources 265

1.51 35 1QM (War Scroll)

1.94 29 1:1 42
2.28 36, 158 3:1 42
Spec. (On the Special Laws) 13:10–­12 178
1.67 47 1QS (Community Rule)
1.171 18 3:3–­9 32
1.270 19 3:13–­4:26 41
4.49 42 3:24 42
4.122 142 3:25–­26 41
4.123 18 4:2–­4 42
4.159 47 4:9–­26 42
4.171 18 4:20–­21 49
Virt. (On the Virtues) 4:25–­26 42
34 19 5:5–­6 25
34–­35 47 6:19 23
215 19 8:5–­6 25
Qumran (DSS) 8:15–­16 23
CD (Damascus Document) 9:3–­6 25
2:12–­13 23 10:10 45
3:3–­4 24 4Q230
3:14 23 f1.2 43
4:17–­18 141 4Q257
5:6–­11 141 5.7 43
7:4 49 4Q269
8:20–­21 24 f10ii.2 43
15:7–­10 24 4Q422
1QHa (Thanksgiving 7 35
Hymn) 4Q444
4:26 32 f14i+5.3 43
5:33–­36 24 4Q509
6:36 43 97–­98 35
8:18–­32 24 4Q510
8:19–­20 49 f1.6 43
8:21–­22 24 11QT (Temple Scroll)
8:24 43 29:8b–­9a 25
8:29 49
11:3–­4 119 Rabbinic Writings
12:11–­13 119 ‘Abot de Rabbi Nathan
15:6–­8 32 37 99
15:8 43 Genesis Rabbah
19:12–­17 23 1:1 159
20:11–­13 119 Mekilta Beshallah (on Exodus)
21:34 49 2 (14:13) 40
27–­28 43 Sukkah Jeremiah
 266 Index of Ancient Sources

55a 40 Dio Chrysostom

Šabbat Discourses
30b 40 31–­36 71
t. Sanh. (Sanhedrin) 36.57 71
7.11 99 Diogenes Laertius
Lives of Eminent Philosophers
Graeco-­Roman Literature
7.1.10–­11 53
Alexander of Aphrodisias 7.1.88 67
Mixt. (De Mixtione) 7.1.135 57
216.14–­16 55, 158 7.1.137 57, 61
216.28–­31 65 7.1.143 61
216.144–­46 2 7.1.147 57
217.6–­7 65 7.1.147 56
Aratus 7.1.156 61
Phaenomena Epictetus
1–­5 53 Diatribes
Aristotle 1.3 71
Generation of Animals 1.6 56
735a4–­22 70 1.14.11–­14 67
Generation and Corruption 2.8.11–­13 67
328a26–­28 64 2.20.6 69
Metaphysics 2.23.7 56
986a17–­21 59 3.24.64–­66 69
On the Spirit (De Spiritu) Euripides
1.481a 27 Iphigenia
Physics 760–­61 56
104.9–­19 66 Galen
213b22 59 De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis
252b 60 5.3.8 61
Politics De Semine
1340a13 62 1.16 71
Cicero 1.16.30 71
De Natura Deorum Heraclitus
1.39 60 B31 D–­K 61
2.19 62, 69
2.28.71 57 Hippocrates
De alimento
Cleanthes 23.1 62
Hymn to Zeus 61 Aphorisms
Cleomedes 7.37–­38 95
De motu circulari De morbo sacro
1.1 63 5 70
Index of Ancient Sources 267

Homer 95.52 56
Odyssey 95.53 69
19.138 60 On Benefits (De Beneficiis)
Lactantius 1.6.3 57
Divine Institutes Natural Questions
7.23 55 2.6.2–­4 62, 158
3.29.3 70
Marcus Aurelius
Meditations Stobaeus
6.38 63 Eclogae
1.55.5–­11 65
PGM (Papyri Graecae Magicae)
1.1–­2 76 SVF (Stoicum Veterum
1.28–­29 75 Fragmenta)
1.96 75 1.513 61
1.116 76 2.1013 62
Pausanius 2.406 62
Descr. (Graeciae descriptio) 2.439 62
2.24.1 29 2.449 62

Plato Themistius
Axiochus On Aristotle’s Physics
366a 95 104.9–­19 65
Timaeus Theophrastus
100a 95 De sensibus
Plutarch 42 56, 67
De communibus notitiis adversus
Stoicos Inscriptions
1078B–­D 65 CIJ (Corpus Inscriptionum
1078E 64 Judaicarum)
De defectu oraculorum 2.1400 133
432D 28 IKosSegre
438a–­b 28 149 89
Seneca IKosHK
Dial. (De Providentia) 4 89
1.2.4 69 OGIS (Orientis Graeci
Epistles Inscriptionis Selectae)
10.5 68–­69 II.598 133
12.8–­9 68 SEG (Supplementum
41 51, 67 Epigraphicum Graecum)
41.2 69 4.247 90
47.11–­12 69 4.250 90
66.12 119 21.506 90
 268 Index of Ancient Sources

Early Christian Literature

Didache
63 140
Eusebius
Ecclesiastical History
1.4.2 154
2.23.7 152
Origen
Against Celsus
6.71 53
8.29–­30 140–­41
Tertullian
Apology
42 154
To the Nations
1.8.1 154