Loading...In my previous post I summarized the legendary account of Paul and his most famous female disciple Thecla, and ended by quoting the “gospel message” that he preaches in the tale. It’s not at all what you would expect. He says no word about believing in Christ’s death and resurrection. It is all about remaining sexually chaste, even when married. No sex. That’s what God is most interested in. Here are some snippets by way of reminders.
Blessed are those who have kept the flesh chaste, for they will become a temple of God.
Blessed are those who are self-controlled, for God will speak to them.
Blessed are those who have renounced this world, for they will be pleasing to God.
Blessed are those who have wives as if they did not have them, for they will be the heirs of God.
Blessed are the bodies of the virgins, for these will be pleasing to God and will not lose the reward for their chastity
If (since!) this is not the main gospel message of the apostle himself, historically, where did it come from? As it turns out, there actually is a precedent for this view of sexual chastity in the writings of Paul himself. For Paul had to deal with the problem of sexual relations in his lifetime, especially when it came to the church in—you guessed it—Corinth.
As has happened in a lot of Christian congregations, ancient and modern, there was a wide range of opinion about sexual matters in the Corinthian church of Paul’s day. I’ve already mentioned in earlier posts that some members of the church did not think that the body much mattered to God, so that, for them, it didn’t matter what one did with the body. And so, some men were visiting prostitutes and bragging about it in church afterward, and one fellow was living with his stepmother.
But there were other people in Corinth who took the opposite view, thinking that since the human spirit is all that mattered, one should ignore all bodily concerns and live only the spiritual life. Some of these people had written Paul a letter in which they asked whether it wasn’t, in fact, better for “a man not to touch a woman”—that is, never to have sexual relations of any kind (see 1 Cor. 7:1). One problem with this approach to sex—not the biggest problem, you might think—is that if there are no avenues for licit sexual activities, things can blow up in one’s face, leading to illicit sexual activities. These spiritual Corinthians are, after all, human.
And so Paul had to address this and a whole range of related issues. As you might expect, he condemns visiting prostitutes and shacking up with stepmothers. But his response to those who think sexual activity of any kind is out of the question is rather interesting, in part because it is so nuanced—to the point that some interpreters think that Paul doesn’t actually give a consistent answer to the Corinthians’ question (see 1 Corinthians 7). His basic reply is that “because of sexual immorality” (i.e., the possibility of illicit sexual activity), every man and woman should be married. Moreover, when married, they should grant one another their conjugal rights (i.e., they should have sex).
But Paul then admits that he is giving these guidelines as a “concession,” because in fact he wishes that everyone could be “as I myself am”—meaning that if he had his own way, everyone would be, like him, single and celibate. But he concedes that this requires a “special gift” from God, and not everyone has it. So, it is better to go ahead and marry if you are unable to control your sexual desires otherwise.
Even so, Paul then goes on to say that it is better to remain unmarried if possible (this is where he seems to some interpreters to contradict himself). In fact, he argues, it is always better to remain in whatever state you find yourself when you become a Christian. Those who are married should stay married; those unmarried should stay single; those who are slaves should not seek to be set free; and so on.
And why is that? It all comes down to Paul’s fundamental conviction: that he was living at the very end of the age, and that the end was soon to come. Why change your social status when what matters is not your present life—which is soon to be overturned when Jesus comes from heaven—but your future life in the kingdom? And so, he says:
The time has grown short. For what is left of it, let those who have wives live as if they do not, and let those who mourn live as if not mourning, and those who rejoice as if not rejoicing… and those who deal with the world as if they are not dealing with it; for the form of this world is passing away. (1 Cor. 7:29–31)
Because the world “is passing away,” it is better for people to remain unmarried if possible: for anyone who is married needs to be concerned for the welfare of their spouse, but the unmarried can be devoted completely to the kingdom that is coming (7:32–35). Still, for those who can’t control one’s sexual urges (i.e., for most people), it is better to get married and have a sanctioned outlet for them.
Paul’s own emphasis on the value of chastity, then, makes sense only within the context of his apocalyptic vision that the world as we know it was soon to change radically with the return of Jesus. What happens, though, when Jesus never does return? What happens when the expected apocalypse never materializes? What happens when the world continues on, year after year, just as it always did before?
One thing that happens is that Paul’s teaching of celibacy comes to be transformed. For as Christianity developed, it shifted away from an apocalyptic expectation that there would be a future utopian life here on earth, to the sense that there would be a future utopian life in heaven. The doctrine of the afterlife—that souls would go to heaven or hell—developed as a kind of de-apocalypticized understanding of an originally apocalyptic gospel.
When Christians no longer expected Jesus to be returning sometime next week, the emphasis shifted from the kingdom that will arrive in the future to the kingdom that is above. The apocalyptic dualism that proclaimed a dividing line between this current evil age and the future utopian age mutates into a non-apocalyptic dualism between this evil world and the world of God. In other words, a horizontal dualism that is sketched in time—this age and the age to come—is transformed into a vertical dualism sketched in space: this world and the world above.
And what happens, then, to an emphasis on chastity once this transformation has taken place? The reason for chastity is no longer that the end is near and we need to be able to devote ourselves to its coming. It is instead that we need to prepare ourselves for the world above. And how better to prepare ourselves for that world than to deny any allegiance to this one?
The proclamation of renunciation is a doctrine that insists we should not be tied to this world if we want to experience the joys of eternal life in heaven. All the pleasures of this world are therefore to be renounced if we are to enter into the kingdom of God when we die. Salvation will come to those who lead the ascetic life of renunciation. That means no fine food, no high-quality wine, no frivolous entertainments, and most especially, no sex. Or at least according to the legendary Acts of Paul and Thecla. And, as it turns out, lots of other legendary tales of the missionary preaching of Jesus’ followers after his death (the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles).
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When did early Christians habituate to the teachings of the end times? It seems like it would be gradual. I know they picked it back up with the evangelical movement in the 1800s.
Are you asking when they started stressing that the end was near? yes, I deal with that in my book Armaggedon. After the initial fervor in the opening decades of Christianity, it began to die down and transform into an expectation of heaven and hell. by the fourth century that was the dominant view, but the expectation of an imminent end lived on throughout the ages. It re-emerged in Britain in a serious say during the French Revolution (where it seemed that all hell literally was breaking out), and then started becoming a bigger movement starting in the 1830s, and bigger and bigger up into modern times among evangelicals.
Dr. Erhman, thanks for answering my question.
Dear Dr Ehrman-This is particularly fascinating to me, as I have relatives on both sides of my family who a monastics (one maternal cousin is a Carthusian in France, two paternal uncles are Carmelite friars). It does seem that an early Christian perception of celibacy was that it acted as an earthly manifestation of the angelic/glorified life described in Matthew 22:30 and Luke 20:34-36.
P.S On an unrelated note in your book ‘Lost Christianities’ you state that the Ebionites believed that Jesus suffered for the sins of the world in his Crucifixion. For his sufferings he was rewarded with a glorious Resurrection. If I may ask, what are your sources in saying this ? I cannot seem to find a great deal about the ebionite view of the Crucifixion.
1 Cor 7:8 To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain unmarried as I am. 9 But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.
Does the word “unmarried” include people who have never been married and people who are divorced?
The emphasis on sexual chastity in texts like The Acts of Paul and Thecla is a later theological development that reflects shifting priorities within the post-AD70, de-Israelitized church—not the original gospel Paul preached within Israel’s covenantal framework. Paul’s original gospel was not asceticism, but redemption and restoration for covenant-bound Israelites—those under the Law and therefore under ‘death’. His focus on chastity and celibacy must be read through the lens of his imminent eschatology: the end of the covenantal age was near, and those being gathered into the restored Israel were to remain undistracted from their calling as a holy remnant. Chastity, then, was not salvific—it was situational, a strategic discipline in light of the “present distress” (1 Cor. 7:26, likely persecution from Jews) as the old covenant world was passing away (1 Cor. 7:31).
The Acts of Paul and Thecla reflects an apocryphal reinterpretation of Paul’s eschatological urgency, transformed through the lens of later ascetic Christianity. It universalizes Paul’s Israelite apocalyptic ethic and detaches it from the looming covenantal crisis. In doing so, it abandons Paul’s actual gospel, which was that Jesus fulfilled the promises, brought redemption to those under the Law, and was gathering the faithful remnant of Israel.
“That means no fine food, no high-quality wine, no frivolous entertainments, and most especially, no sex.”
Are we sure this isn’t the bad place?
Hello Dr.Bart Erhman
Do you think the 500 witnessess is good evidence for the ressurection?
I think they would be a very interesting phenomenon to discuss if we could show they really witnessed it. Paul is the only one who mentions it, and you would think that if something like that happened it would be mentioned in the Gospels. He never indicates where he got the story from, or what it entailed exactly.
Dr. Ehrman, Do you believe Paul was single and celibate before he became committed to Jesus? Did other pharisees teach that people should be celibate?
Do you have an opinion on why religions (and some philosophies) tend to be such killjoys, particularly when it comes to sex? I mean, why not encourage your followers to enjoy the fun things in life? Might help recruiting!
Dr. Ehrman,
My question has nothing to do with the writing involving Thecla, but specifically what Paul said in his undisputed letters.
More specifically, since Paul was a Jew, did any of his admonitions against sexuality have any roots in what ancient Jews would have believed/expected would come with the coming of the Messiah?
Or were his admonitions against sexuality simply his own… that he “received”?
Great article! But it raises a question I’ve had for many years: why do Christians accept that Paul is speaking for god on these issues and not just offering his own take on morality?
What does the word “world” mean in the New Testament context?
We have “don’t live in the world,” “the end of the world,” and similar statements from the NT.
In common modern English, “world” often means earth. From the NT, we also get “new heaven and new earth”.
At the end of the NT, at the very end of Revelation, we get the New Jerusalem. The Earth is still here. The New Jerusalem is a really, really big place, almost as big as the United States, but there is still the Earth. There’s just the inside of the New Jerusalem and that which is outside of it.
My question is: What does the word “world” mean in the New Testament context?
The “world” most commonly means the world of humans, the earth as inhabited by people. There are of course different Greek words that can be translated “world” and each has its own nuances.
Can I ask what the different words for ‘world’ in Greek are and what their nuances are?
Also, where and how in the bible are the different Greek words used?
In one of your recent YouTube podcasts that you do with Megan, you gave a breakdown of the different words for ‘love’. Thanks for that. (I went and wrote them all down.)
There again will be a lot of overlap:
• gē is used to refer to “earth” in contrast to “heaven” above or in contrast to “sea”; it can also mean a land, or a country, or a region, or the “earth” that is farmed (that is, the soil). (It does NOT mean “countryside” as it is mistranslated in the original NRSV; the translators translated it that way because otherwise the verse makes no sense: Jesus was in Jerusalem in 3:1-21 and then the author says “then he went to the land/region of Judea.” Uh, well, Jerusalem is IN that land / region of Judea!!)
• kosmos literally means “order,” and can refer to good behavior, a government, an ornament, adornment, clothing, etc., but it can also mean the totality of all that exists, the “world” as an ordered place – where “world” doesn’t mean just “planet earth” as we think of it as a planet within a solar system within a galaxy within a universe, but more like “all the material things there are here in our experienced reality” “the inhabited planet” – that is, “this world.” If they had a concept of “universe” that’s what the word would mean.
• Oukoumenē refers specifically to the inhabited earth, the realm occupied by humans. It can also be used more restrictively to refer to the “Roman Empire” (the only inhabited place that mattered to most … inhabitants of the Roman Empire!), or to the “Greek world” as opposed to those barbarian places out there; and it can be used to refer to all the “inhabitants” of earth itself, that is, “humankind”
ē
Thank You.
So in the New Testament, where it says, “A new heaven and a new earth”, in Greek would that be ‘a new kosmos and a new oukoumenē’ or ‘a new kosmos and a new gē’, or something different?
Thanks again for all your info and insights.
It’s a new OURANON (the standard word for “heaven”) and new GE. (Rev 21:1)
I’ve run into a lot of controversy concerning Paul’s ideas about “passion” inside marriage. The biggest problem is that he doesn’t even mention children. It’s like there’s a disconnect between doing “it” and conceiving/creating children.
1 Corinthians: 3-5
3The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife.
5Do not deprive each other, except by mutual consent and for a time, so you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan will not tempt you through your lack of self-control.
No mention of having children and being able to provide and take care of them. No mention of the health risks, even life and death risks of pregnancy and childbirth. No mention of being able to properly wean a child before having another one, as this can stunt a child’s growth if they don’t get enough mother’s milk.
Did he think that the “end” was going to come so soon that people wouldn’t even be able to bring a child to term?
That’s a great question! I would assume something like that may be right. In the context he’s talking about sexual desire, not procreation.
Yeah, but, unless we are talking about a gay couple, aren’t sexual desire and procreation very much the same subject?
Someone I know who has a graduate degree in psychology has confirmed the concept that there is a disconnect between these two things, procreation and desire, and that runs all through history, even in our ancient texts, and up to modern times. — Could this come from our evolution? That we do not fully understand and comprehend the full situation?
If we are after the truth here, is this the truth, even if it’s a rather inconvenient truth and not what we always want to hear or the way we want to see things?
Lately, I’ve been looking at procreation and asking if the way we understand procreation reflects on how we understand and regard humanity, how we regard others, and ultimately how we regard ourselves.
I know a preacher who says that Jesus taught “One Love ~ True Love”
Should procreation (when done in the spirit and done “right”) be considered something divine, special, and even holy?
Sorry about all the philosophy, but isn’t that a part of what we are doing here?
No, I’d say not. The vast majority of people who act upon their sexual desires are in the vast majority of cases not doing it in order to have a baby.
Well, the numbers keep coming in on the numbers of people who have cancer from taking the pill.
Of course we could go back to large numbers of people dying in childbirth. That would probably be even more awful and horrific.
A good number of people seem to think that the verse I mentioned above, 1 Corinthians: 3:5, underminds and undercuts consent or full consent concerning pregnancy and childbirth, as well as just plain simple consent in doing ‘it’.
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Another question is; Is that verse really from Paul?
You’ve explained that other verses in 1 Corinthians were inserted by scribes. Is it possible that this verse was “inserted” as well? They kind of relate to the same subject.
There doesn’t seem to be much evidence that it is inserted, unlike other passages.
No evidence except that it’s bad advice, even deadly advice.
Another quote from JS Spong:
“This is not the word of God. These are the words of Paul.”
(or something very close to that).
The Jewish tradition seems to have a certain amount of balance built into their system. If people have too many children too close together, they are said to be “unclean”. This probably helps in preventing injury and death in childbirth. It also ensures that a child can get enough of their mother’s milk. It can stunt a child’s growth if it’s not available.
They also have a tradition of waiting a certain amount of time after a woman’s womb renewal period. Idk if this makes for healthier pregnancies and fetal development, but it does imply a certain amount of self-control which is just built into their belief system and ways of doing and looking at things.
There’s nothing about wanting children or more children, however, or being able to afford them or take care of them.