Christ Against the Cosmos: An Essay on Pauline Freedom, Part II

Part One can be found here.

The Old Cosmos: The Sphere of Slavery

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, freedom is clearly the issue at stake.[1] “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1, RSV) summarizes the matter.[2] Apparently, this Gentile Christian community, founded by Paul, was infiltrated by a group of Jewish Christian missionaries (the “Teachers”), perhaps associated with the Jerusalem Church, who presented “another gospel” that contradicted Paul’s message.[3] Their alternative teaching, emphasizing the necessity of Torah observance (including circumcision) for membership in the Christian movement, appears to have been in many ways consistent with the theology of covenantal nomism noted above.[4] Does Christian freedom presuppose the Jewish basis for freedom, i.e. Torah observance? The Teachers answer, “yes,” while Paul forcefully argues “no.” It is this question that shapes Paul’s rhetoric of freedom in Galatians.[5]

It is important to note, however, that this rhetoric exhibits continuities, as well as discontinuities, with Jewish and Hellenistic conceptions of freedom. In this regard, Betz notes that Paul not only shares the generally pessimistic mood of his time, he even exceeds it in his consignment of the entire cosmos to a state of enslavement.[6] Christ came to set us free from this present evil age (Gal. 1:3-4), an age in which both Jews (“those born under the law”) and Gentiles (“enslaved to beings that by nature are not gods”) are in bondage to the elemental spirits of the cosmos (Gal. 3:22-4:11). Indeed, this state of slavery is so pervasive that Paul speaks of the cross of Christ as the means whereby the entire cosmos has been crucified to make way for a new creation (Gal. 6:14-15).

In this we begin to glimpse the radical eschatological vision that shapes Paul’s view of freedom. As J. Louis Martyn notes, for Paul the cross of Christ represents God’s apocalyptic invasion of the cosmos overturning the structures of domination that had previously enslaved both Jew and Gentile.[7] Christ has overcome these enslaving powers, “the elements of the cosmos,” bringing to an end the present age and inaugurating a new creation, a sphere of freedom marked by life in the Spirit.

Crucial to Paul’s argument is his understanding of these enslaving powers. Drawing upon notions prevalent in Greek and, later, Jewish thought, Paul conceives of “the elements of the cosmos” as pairs of opposites that constitute the foundation of the world: earth, air, fire, and water. In some forms of pagan worship, to which the Galatians presumably adhered prior to their conversion, these elements were reified as divine powers governing the cosmic order. [8] Paul, however, defines these powers as sources of domination and division rather than as benevolent or, at least, neutral spiritual forces.

This is clear from Paul’s mention of these powers in 4:3 and 4:9. Pagan worship of them is therefore a form of slavery. This judgment illuminates the pairs of opposites mentioned in the baptismal formula quoted by Paul in 3:28 - Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female[9] – as identity markers that are transcended in baptism. Such distinctions, and the relationships of superordination and subordination that they define, exemplify life governed by the enslaving elements of the cosmos.[10]

What is startling, however, is Paul’s association of Torah with these enslaving powers as well. This is evident throughout his argument in 3:19 – 4:11. Because Christ is the fulfillment of the covenantal promises made to Abraham, incorporation into Christ through faith in him, rather than incorporation into Abraham/Israel through Torah observance, is the means of salvation. This is the essence of Paul’s emphasis on justification by faith in 3:1 – 18. The function of Torah, therefore, is defined as a “confining custodian” from whom Christ now liberates those united with him in baptism (3:24-29). For the Galatians, having been liberated from the elements of the cosmos, to now adopt Torah observance would be a return to bondage (4:8-10).[11]

Paul underscores this conclusion with the allegory of the covenants of Hagar and Sarah in 4:21-31, bringing the issue of slavery and freedom into sharp focus. Returning again to the Genesis narrative, Paul elaborates yet another set of opposites to elaborate the contrast between the nature of the liberating covenant of which Sarah is the type, to whom Isaac was born of faith in God’s promise, and the enslaving covenant of which Hagar is the type, to whom Ishmael was born of circumcision in the flesh.

While interpreters have long read this passage as setting up an opposition between Christianity and Judaism,[12] Martyn provides a more creative and contextual reading that identifies the typology as a contrast between two different Gentile missions – that of Paul presenting the gospel from the “Jerusalem above” and that of the Teachers from the Jerusalem Church whose mission is tantamount to persecution.[13] For the Gentiles in Galatia, who have already been born of the Spirit, to adopt the Sinai covenant would be to turn from freedom to slavery. Thus, the allegory serves to reinforce Paul’s conclusion in 4:8-9 and his attempt to persuade the Galatians to reject the Teachers and the instruction they offer, clinging instead to their freedom in Christ (4:30-5:1). The comprehensive nature of the enslavement of the cosmos in Paul’s thought, encompassing both pagan and Jewish religious options, is remarkable.

In a word, Paul employs the ancient equation of the world’s elements with the archaic pairs of opposites to interpret the religious impact of Christ’s advent. Following the baptismal formula, he applies that tradition not to the sensible elements, but rather to the elements of religious distinction. These are the cosmic elements that have found their termination in Christ. Specifically, the cosmos that was crucified on the cross is the cosmos that was founded on the distinction between Jew and Gentile, between sacred and profane, between the Law and the Not-Law.[14]

Freedom requires overcoming these antinomies and their enslaving power. How is this accomplished? This brings us to a consideration of Paul’s understanding of the new creation in Christ.

The New Creation: the Sphere of Freedom

Consistent with the covenantal nomism of the Judaism of his day, Paul understands human freedom as the result of God’s liberating action in history.[15] This is in stark contrast to the Greek philosophical options current at the time, which stressed ascetic disciplines and self-knowledge leading to self-control as prerequisites of freedom.[16] Like other Jews, Paul understands freedom as the result of divine, not human, action.

Whereas Judaism locates this act of divine liberation in the exodus from Egypt and the giving of the Torah at Sinai, Paul locates it in the cross of Christ. It is only through Christ’s self-offering on the cross that the enslaving powers of the cosmos have been overcome, creating the possibility of human freedom.

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father . . . (Gal. 1:3-4, RSV)

But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. (Gal. 6:14-15, RSV)

These verses, marking the beginning and end of the letter, make clear Paul’s understanding that it is God’s action in Christ that liberates. As has been seen already in Paul’s exegetical argument in chapter three of Galatians, this liberating act creates a new creation whereby the enslaving cosmic antinomies, including that between Torah and not-Torah, have been transcended.

It is important to note that Paul is not arguing for a continuous salvation history from the patriarchs to Christ, whereby Christianity now supercedes Judaism. Rather, God’s apocalyptic invasion of and triumph over the cosmos in Christ is a singular event that, while fulfilling the promise to Abraham, does so not as an extension of the Sinai covenant, not as a new covenant, but as a novum creating the covenant people of God for the first time. It is not that Gentiles are now added to the “old” Jewish covenant, but that both Jews and Gentiles are now made heirs of the promise through Christ.[17]

It follows from this that one’s incorporation into the new creation cannot come through circumcision, but only through faith in Christ (Gal. 2:15-16, 20-21).[18] It is trusting that Christ is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, not Torah observance, that is decisive. Baptism is therefore the effective sign of union with Christ and membership in the covenantal community of those who are by faith heirs of the promise.

For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:26-29, RSV).

It is the community of those “baptized into Christ” who constitute the covenantal people of God. Again, there is continuity with Jewish covenantal nomism, in that the sphere of divine liberation is communal/public rather than individual/private in nature, but also discontinuity in that this community is no longer defined by a particular ethnic-national identity or experience. Indeed, all enslaving antinomies are transcended in this new creation.

Gal. 3:28 is best understood as a communal Christian self-definition rather than a statement about the baptized individual. It proclaims that in the Christian community all distinctions of religion, race, class, nationality, and gender are insignificant. All the baptized are equal, they are one in Christ.[19]

Once again, Paul’s apocalyptic perspective is clear. Baptism marks one’s entry into the true eschatological community in Christ Jesus. There is, however, a decidedly this-worldly character to the new creation, for when Paul invokes the baptismal formula he “makes these statements not as utopian ideals or as ethical demands, but as accomplished facts.”[20] While Paul is most concerned in the context of Galatians with the first pair of opposites in the baptismal formula - neither Jew nor Greek, Betz has noted that all three pairs would have had an emancipatory appeal to the Gentile communities in Galatia.[21]

This explains, in part, the nature of the problem Paul faces in Galatia. The gospel Paul preached there was one of freedom in Christ, but a freedom so radical that the whole world that the Galatians had known, the “elements of the cosmos” that gave it order, had been shattered by the cross. While the Galatians accepted the good news of salvation Paul preached, they may well have felt at a loss as to how to exercise the freedom implied in it.

Apparently the anti-Pauline opposition promoted observance of the Jewish law by arguing that only within the law can true freedom be found and preserved, an old argument that appears in many discussions about the nature of the law in Greek and Roman philosophy. Thus Paul’s argument for freedom from the Jewish Torah would have occurred in the context of alternative solutions which conceived of the Torah as basis and protector of freedom.[22]

The Galatians’ experience of freedom may well have occasioned a sense of “moral vertigo,” providing the Teachers with the opportunity to promote Torah observance as the solution to this problem. Thus, it remains for Paul to explain how the Galatians’ freedom in Christ works itself out in daily life. This brings us to the exhortation of Gal. 5:2 – 6:10.

Click on to Part Three.
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[1] Betz, Galatians, pp. 2-3: “Paul’s message of ‘freedom in Christ’ must have found attentive ears among people interested in political, social, cultural, and religious emancipation.”
[2] Ibid., pp. 255-256 notes that the theme announced in 5:1 is anticipated in 2:4-5, and that it is implicit in the exegetical arguments that precede it in chapters 3 & 4.
[3] See Gal. 1:6-7. Cf. Betz, Ibid., pp. 5-9 and J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp. 117-136 on the message and success of these “Teachers” to whom Paul is opposed.
[4] See Gal. 1:6-9; 3:1-5; 4:21; 5:2-4, 7-12; 6:12-13 for Paul’s characterization of his opponents. Cf. Dunn, op. cit, pp. 129 ff. and J. Louis Martyn, “Events in Galatia,” in Jouette M. Bassler, ed., Pauline Theology, Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), pp. 163-179, who both agree that Paul’s opponents presented a “Christianized” version of covenantal nomism, though they differ as to whether Paul modifies (Dunn) or rejects (Martyn) their point of view.
[5] Betz, op. cit., pp. 14-25, argues that Galatians exemplifies the genre of apologetic letters, employing judicial rhetoric that was common in the period; whereas Martyn, Galatians, op. cit., pp. 20-23, while acknowledging these stylistic elements in the letter, argues that Galatians is really a highly situational sermon in form and content.
[6] Betz, “Paul’s Concept of Freedom,” pp. 5-6.
[7] Martyn, op. cit., pp. 95-105, 570-574.
[8] See Martyn, ibid., pp. 393-406 for an extended discussion of the meaning of this phrase.
[9] Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 208-218 persuasively argues that the male/female dichotomy is best understood in the context of the patriarchal household and might be translated more accurately as husband/wife, pointing to the transcendence in baptism of the inequalities inherent in the institution of marriage.
[10] Martyn, op. cit., pp. 404-406.
[11] Ibid., pp. 294-418.
[12] See for example Betz, op. cit., pp. 238-252, who argues that “According to Galatians, Judaism is excluded from salvation altogether . . .”.
[13] Martyn, op. cit., pp. 447-466.
[14] Ibid., pp. 405-406.
[15] Banks, op. cit., p. 21.
[16] Ibid., pp. 21-22.
[17] Martyn, “Events in Galatia,” pp. 172-174.
[18] While Paul, at lest in Galatians, is not precisely clear about how it is that Christ’s death on the cross provides the decisive victory over the enslaving elements of the cosmos, vs. 20 provides an important clue: is the action of self-giving love exemplified by the cross that liberates. This clearly underlies the parenetic material in 5:1 – 6:10. See Betz, “Paul’s Concept of Freedom,” pp. 8-9 on the relationship between sacrifice and freedom in antiquity.
[19] Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, op. cit., p. 213.
[20] Betz, Galatians, p. 189.
[21] Ibid., pp. 189-201. Betz proposes that while Paul finds himself having to back away from some of the implications of this emancipatory appeal in his later correspondence, in Galatians the transcending of ethnic, religious, class, and gender distinctions in Christ Jesus is announced without further qualification.
[22] Betz, “Paul’s Concept of Freedom,” p. 11. Cf. Betz, Galatians, pp. 5-9.

Christ Against the Cosmos: An Essay on Pauline Freedom, Part I

Introduction

While it is indisputable that “freedom,” eleutheria, is central to Paul’s conception of the gospel of salvation, Pauline scholarship remains divided in its interpretation of how Paul understands this important idea.[1] What prior Jewish and Hellenistic influences are operative in Paul’s understanding of freedom? In what ways can his use of the term be distinguished from these influences? What is the range of freedom operative in his thought? Is it personal/interior or public/political in scope? The purpose of this essay is to explore these questions concentrating on Paul’s letter to the Galatians.[2]

In doing so, I will argue that Paul’s apocalyptic vision is crucial to his understanding of freedom, a vision in which God’s action in Christ creates a public sphere of freedom in an otherwise enslaved world. This vision infuses Paul’s argument in Galatians and demarks the source, scope, and content of freedom in the letter.[3]

Pre-Pauline Background: Freedom in Hellenism and Judaism

“At the time of Paul, the classical Greek notion of freedom had largely been reduced to an old dream.”[4] So writes Hans Dieter Betz, arguing that what once was a political term rooted in the metaphysical idea that all men are free by nature had become an apolitical and even anti-political term. In its original context, the meaning of eleutheria was shaped by the experience of Athenian democracy. Freedom was exemplified by the citizen’s participation in the political life of the polis and by his ability to live without undo constraint, “living as one wished.”[5]

With Roman occupation and rule came the severing of the idea of freedom from its metaphysical roots, as freedom became identified with the order of the Pax Romana enshrined in civil law. The older Greek idea of freedom became suspect as anarchic antinomianism. This changing political climate, along with a growing religious pessimism that came to see humans as enslaved by cosmic, spiritual powers, combined to promote a philosophical turn to the individual.[6]

Thus, freedom became interiorized and individualized as a spiritual state that the human person, enslaved by Tyche/Fatum, could attain only by withdrawal from the world into union with the divine. According to Betz, the various philosophical schools, including the Cynics, Stoics, and Epicureans, exemplified this basic motif. This, too, could lead to Roman charges of antinomianism, as the wise man thereby achieved autarchy, self-sufficiency, above and beyond civil law, free even from the state’s ultimate coercive power – the fear of death.

As a consequence of this development, the original connection of the free person with the community of the free was almost lost. Limited attempts were made by some to retain this aspect of the concept and to realize it in small philosophical groups and in certain mystery religions, among them Hellenistic Judaism and the early Christian Church.[7]

Given Paul’s background – an educated, Hellenistic Jew with Roman citizenship – it is highly likely that he was aware of the various philosophical options of his time. As Hans Wedell has noted, Paul need only have gone to the marketplace in Tarsus to hear itinerant Stoic and Cynic philosophers. Greek thought, moreover, had begun to influence Jewish philosophy by the second century BCE, so that Paul might well have encountered Stoic ideas in the rabbinical schools of Tarsus or Jerusalem.[8]

In this regard, it is important to note that Betz and Wedell’s conflation of Stoic and Cynic understandings of freedom has been criticized. “For Stoics, freedom is internalized . . . It is all a question of your own self-awareness, self-assessment. For Cynics, freedom must be overt, active, socially effective.”[9] As F. Gerald Downing argues, Cynic practice was much more directly and publicly subversive of social conventions and norms.

In fact, the baptismal formula of Gal. 3:28 may well draw on familiar Cynic topoi, suggesting itself as particularly relevant to the former pagan audience that Paul addresses in Galatians, who had so clearly broken with the conventions and norms of their former way of life by becoming Christians.[10] Whatever the case may be with regard to the origins of Gal. 3:28, the point is that the ideas regarding freedom current in Hellenistic society may not have been uniformly inward-looking in their orientation, and that Paul was probably conversant with these ideas.

This point is reinforced by a consideration of Paul’s Jewish background. James D. G. Dunn, drawing upon the work of E. P. Sanders,[11] has postulated that a proper understanding of Galatians (and, therefore, Paul’s conception of freedom) requires an appreciation of the relationship between God and Israel as understood by Paul’s Jewish contemporaries.

Fundamental to Judaism’s sense of identity was the conviction that God had made a special covenant with the patriarchs, the central feature of which was the choice of Israel to be God’s peculiar people (e.g., Deut. 4:31; 2 Macc. 8:15; Pss. Sol. 9:10; CD 6:2, 8:18), and had given the law as an integral part of the covenant both to show Israel how to live within that covenant (“This do and you shall live” [Deut. 4:1, 10, 40; 5:29-33; 6:1-2, 18, 24; etc.]) and to make it possible for them to do so (the system of atonement). Thus in the phrase “covenantal nomism,” the former word emphasizes God’s prevenient grace, and the latter cannot and should not be confused with legalism or with any idea of “earning” salvation.[12]

Indeed, implicit in the idea of covenantal nomism is the understanding that Torah observance signifies and enables the practice of freedom. Freedom is coterminous with inclusion in the covenant people, Israel, and such inclusion is marked by Torah observance. Freedom is identified with the national-ethnic liberation of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage that is consolidated in the Sinai covenant. It is God who sets free, and who through Torah provides the means to sustain authentic freedom in daily life. However much the prophetic tradition within Israel moves to stretch the boundaries of the covenant people to include Gentiles, their inclusion is on the basis of accepting the markers of Jewish ethnic identity and national aspirations.[13]

It is important to note that this conception of freedom is distinctly public and communal, in contrast to the philosophies predominate in Hellenism, but in such a way as to privilege Jews vis-à-vis Gentiles and to heighten the separation between the two groups. As we will see, what is distinctive about Paul is the way in which he draws from both Jewish and Hellenistic ideas about freedom, while transforming them in light of the cross of Christ and the new community that it brings into being.

Click on to Part Two.
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[1] Robert Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), p. 15 notes the frequency and importance of Paul’s use of eleutheria in his letters and its close connection to his understanding of both salvation and community.
[2] H. D. Betz, Galatians (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 32 notes that the notion of freedom underlies the entire letter, and is explicitly employed as “an argumentative weapon” in the exhortation (Gal. 5:1 – 6:10).
[3] J. Louis Martyn, “Apocalyptic Antinomies,” in Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997), pp. 111-123 summarizes the argument for the central role Paul’s apocalyptic vision in the interpretation of Galatians. See also his commentary, Galatians (New York: Doubleday, 1997), pp. 97-105.
[4] H. D. Betz, “Paul’s Concept of Freedom in the Context of Hellenistic Discussions about Possibilities of Human Freedom,” Protocol of the Twenty-Sixth Colloquy of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, W. Wuellner, ed. (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1977), p. 1.
[5] Ibid., p. 2. The use of the masculine pronoun in this context refers exclusively to men, as citizenship was the prerogative of freeborn male property holders.
[6] Ibid., pp. 3-4.
[7] Ibid., pp. 4-5.
[8] Hans Wedell, “The Idea of Freedom in the Teaching of the Apostle Paul,” Anglican Theological Review, v. 32, no. 3, 1950, pp. 205-206. Betz, op. cit., p. 6 comments that Paul’s ideas regarding freedom indicate a serious engagement with the philosophical and religious alternatives of his day.
[9] F. Gerald Downing, “A Cynic Preparation for Paul’s Gospel for Jew and Greek, Slave and Free, Male and Female,” New Testament Studies, v. 42, 1996, p. 459.
[10] Ibid., pp. 457-461.
[11] For a concise summary of Sanders’ definition of “covenantal nomism” see Bruce W. Longenecker, The Triumph of Abraham’s God: The Transformation of Identity in Galatians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark Ltd., 1998), p. 15-17.
[12] James D. G. Dunn, “The Theology of Galatians: The Issue of Covenantal Nomism,” in Jouette M. Bassler, ed., Pauline Theology, Volume I: Thessalonians, Philippians, Galatians, Philemon (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), p. 126.
[13] Ibid., pp. 126-128. Cf. Banks, op. cit., pp. 20-21.