Give or Take Eternity: Getting Paid

Our Eternal Wages

If the wages of sin is truly death,
God owes to us each one a final breath-
taking moment that he might then recall
the nefesh of life he gave to us all,
the psyche of soul, a foretaste of spirit,
the pneuma of life, the abundance within it.

And that says a lot: Saint Paul's glorification of the resurrected body in a nutshell!

Update: See next blog entry.

Harold W. Attridge on "The Law" in Paul and Hebrews

Torah

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm still reading my way slowly through Harold Attridge's Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews as I prepare each week for Sunday's study of Hebrews in the small Bible study group at my church, and I find that Attridge has some interesting words on the difference between attitudes to Old Testament Law in the thinking of Paul and that of the author of Hebrews. I'll post the brief excursus on this in a moment, but we first need to look at the translation by Attridge of Hebrews 7:11-19:

[11] Now if there were perfection through the Levitical priesthood -– for based upon it the people has been given a law –- what further need would there be for a different priest to be raised up "according to the order of Melchizedek," and (why would he) not be said to be "according to the order of Aaron?" [12] -- For if the priesthood is changed, then of necessity there is also a change of law. [13] For the one about whom these things are said belongs to a different tribe, from which no one has attended the altar. [14] For it is clear that our Lord has sprung out of Judah, in regard to which tribe, Moses said nothing about priests. [15] And it is even more abundantly clear, if a different priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, [16] who came to be not according to a law of fleshy command, but according to a power of indestructible life. [17] For testimony is given that "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." [18] There was, then, an abrogation of the preceding command because of its weakness and uselessness -- [19] for the Law brought nothing to perfection -- and also an introduction of a better hope through which we draw near to God. (Attridge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989, pages 198a)

Attridge offers several pages of commentary on these verses, though I won't go into those but turn directly to his excursus on the distinction between Paul's thought and the thinking of the author of Hebrews on the issue of Old Testament Law:

Excursus: Hebrews, Paul, and the Law

Hebrews and Paul both argue against the continuing religious validity of the Torah, although from rather different perspectives. Paul's arguments, developed variously in Galations and Romans, do not focus, as does Hebrews, on the cultic dimensions of the Torah, but rather on the prescriptive and ethical. Paul's affirmations about the Law in Gal 3:19-29 resemble in a general way some of the remarks here. The similarities probably represent common attitudes among more radical members of the early church engaged in the Gentile mission. Basically the Law is ineffective. This is so for Paul because the Law cannot "give life" or provide righteousness, while for Hebrews it cannot bring perfection. While the remarks are formally similar, the difference of conceptual frameworks in which the two authors operate is clear.

In Romans, Paul's critique of the Law is more elaborate yet more nuanced, and he affirms, as he never does in Galatians, that his teaching of righteousness by faith in fact "upholds the Law" (3:31). In Romans the failure of the Law is seen to consist in its service to of the power of sin. To explain how the Law, which is itself good, can be an instrument of evil, Paul offers a psychological analysis, illustrating how Sin uses the Law to awaken desire. Thus the failure of the Law as command lies in human weakness, the “weakness of the flesh."

In Hebrews, the inefficiency of the Law, which is intimately bound up with the cultic system, is also based on the weakness of "flesh." Flesh does not here refer to psychological or existential factors of the human condition. The Law itself and the cult prescribed by it are fleshy because they are devoted to externals. This critique is more radical than Paul's remarks in Romans 7:14, where the Law itself is seen to be spiritual. At the same time, the force of the critique is different from that of Romans. As [Walter] Gutbrod aptly summarizes the difference, for Paul the Law is ineffective because human beings do not do it; for Hebrews it is ineffective because only human beings do it. (Attridge, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989, pages 204a-205b)

Interesting. This ought to offer the Hebrews study group something to talk about. The author of Hebrews considers the Law "fleshy" because it is carried out by priests who are of the priesthood by genealogical descent from Levi (Attridge, Commentary, page 202b), unlike the priesthood to which Jesus belongs, the "order of Melchizedek," whom Hebrews describes in 7:3 as "being without father, mother, or lineage, having neither beginning of days nor end of life" (Attridge, Commentary, page 186a).

That's enough for now . . .

John Heilbron: "nimis cupiditas cognoscendi"?

Linus Pauling

(Image from Oregon State University)

In looking yesterday for the video interview of John Heilbron by Harry Kreisler, I came across another interesting video featuring John, this time of a lecture, "Remarks on the Writing of Biography," given in 1995 at a conference dedicated to Linus Pauling. In that talk, John remarks (somewhat with tongue in cheek):

Biographers may be particularly prone to what Saint Paul called nimis cupiditas cognoscendi -- that is, too great a desire to know.

My Latin isn't very good, but the English translation that John provided didn't immediately strike a chord of memory despite some overtones in Paul's warning words about interesting oneself in human knowledge:

Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. (Colossians 2:8, King James Version)

A Google search for "nimis cupiditas cognoscendi" turned up only John's talk. Perhaps I'm exhibiting this condemned intellectual sin, but I'd like to know where this expression came from. I've managed to find the English expression "too great a desire to know" in Kempis's Imitation of Christ:

Rest from too great a desire to know, because therein is found great discord and delusion. Learned men are very eager to appear, and to be called learned. There is much which it profits the soul little or nothing to know. And foolish indeed is he who gives his attention to other things than those which make for his salvation. (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, translated by EM Blaiklock, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979) page 24)

Another translation offers this:

Shun too great a desire for knowledge, for in it there is much fretting and delusion. Intellectuals like to appear learned and to be called wise. Yet there are many things the knowledge of which does little or no good to the soul, and he who concerns himself about other things than those which lead to salvation is very unwise. (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, translated by Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1940))

This passage appears in Kempis's second chapter, which opens by quoting Aristotle's famous words from the initial line to his Metaphysics: "Every man naturally desires knowledge." Kempis then goes on to cite Augustine's warning about knowledge, which places Kempis's own warning squarely within the lengthy Christian tradition that put restrictions on curiosity. Indeed, a search for "curiosity" in Kempis's Imitation reveals many warnings against it. However, I lack a Latin copy of Kempis and therefore cannot check the original behind "too great a desire to know."

But maybe this is barking up the wrong tree anyway. Perhaps John meant not "nimis cupiditas cognoscendi" but "nimis cupidus cognoscendi"? I don't think that Saint Paul said that, either, but the second-century writer Apuleius did, in Book Two of his wonderful novel The Golden Ass, which tells how Lucius follows his overeager curiosity into a world of trouble wrought by his transformation into a donkey as punishment for his inquisitive ways, characterized by Lucius as "nimis cupidus cognoscendi quae rara miraque sunt," i.e., "too great a desire to know what is rare and miraculous." Apuleius doesn't have quite the cachet that Saint Paul has, but Augustine did stoop to cite him on the dangers of curiosity, so I think that we can allow him entrance here in John's lecture as the probable source behind what was quoted as "nimis cupiditas cognoscendi."

Future biographers writing on The Life of John Heilbron will undoubtedly thank me for clearing this up . . . especially if I can get John himself to supply a comment to this blog entry.

"But fondly overcome with Femal charm..."

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles

"και αδαμ ουκ ηπατηθη..."

(Image from Wikipedia)

When I was about 12 years old, I heard our pastor at First Baptist Church of Salem, Arkansas, David Keyes, give a sermon on 1 Timothy 2:13-14:

13. αδαμ γαρ πρωτος επλασθη ειτα ευα 14. και αδαμ ουκ ηπατηθη η δε γυνη απατηθεισα εν παραβασει γεγονεν (Textus Receptus 1550/1894)

15. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. (King James Version)

Pastor Keyes presented his view that Adam, not being deceived, had chosen to eat the fruit of knowledge because he loved Eve and did not wish to be separated from her. At the time, I found this interpretation surprising, but as a mere 12-year-old kid, I didn't know what to make of it.

Yesterday, I heard Pastor Jack Peters, of Seoul International Baptist Church, present a similar message, but he started with Romans 5:12-14:

12. δια τουτο ωσπερ δι ενος ανθρωπου η αμαρτια εις τον κοσμον εισηλθεν και δια της αμαρτιας ο θανατος και ουτως εις παντας ανθρωπους ο θανατος διηλθεν εφ ω παντες ημαρτον 13. αχρι γαρ νομου αμαρτια ην εν κοσμω αμαρτια δε ουκ ελλογειται μη οντος νομου 14. αλλ εβασιλευσεν ο θανατος απο αδαμ μεχρι μωσεως και επι τους μη αμαρτησαντας επι τω ομοιωματι της παραβασεως αδαμ ος εστιν τυπος του μελλοντος (Textus Receptus 1550/1894)

12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13. For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. (King James Version)

Peters noted that the term in Greek for word "figure" in verse 14 is τυπος, or "type," meaning that Adam was an antetype of Christ (i.e., "him that was to come"). So far, so good. He then argued that in the clause "them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," Paul refers to all human beings after Adam, for Adam was innocent until he sinned, whereas all others are born flawed by original sin already prior to their first sinful decision.

I'll return to this point later, but let me finish the minister's argument.

Peters then turned to 1 Timothy 2:13-14 and presented a reading similar to the one that I had heard from David Keyes back in Arkansas when I was about 12. But he took the argument a bit further. Adam was a "type" of Christ because prior to his fall, he was pure in body, soul, and mind, and he chose to 'sacrifice' himself out of a pure love for Eve because he could not bear being separated from her and believed that God would ultimately redeem Eve (and humanity).

Peters said that he has come to this interpretation because he was trying to determine the way in which Paul meant that Adam was a type of Christ, and he concluded that Paul meant that Adam's choice to join Eve in her fallenness was made with his perfect, unfallen thinking, for as the text states, "Adam was not deceived."

Variants upon this interpretation seem to have a history in Protestant exegesis (and possibly Catholic as well?), for John Milton presents a similar reading in Paradise Lost 9.888-1015 but with an important distinction, as is made clear in lines 990-999, when Eve hears Adam's decision to accept the fruit of knowledge:

So saying, she embrac'd him, and for joy [990]
Tenderly wept, much won that he his Love
Had so enobl'd, as of choice to incurr
Divine displeasure for her sake, or Death.
In recompence (for such compliance bad
Such recompence best merits) from the bough [995]
She gave him of that fair enticing Fruit
With liberal hand: he scrupl'd not to eat
Against his better knowledge, not deceav'd,
But fondly overcome with Femal charm. (PL 9.990-999)

Both Adam and Eve imagine that Adam chooses to accept the fruit of knowledge as a sort of self-sacrifice (as the larger context would make clear), but Milton tells us that Adam is "fondly overcome with Femal charm," and in Milton's day, "fondly" meant "foolishly."

Milton thus seems aware of an interpretation that reads Adam's choice as a sort of noble self-sacrifice, but he rejects that reading in favor of a Medieval one whereby Adam is 'seduced' by Eve's feminine charms.

I wonder if the interpretation that has Adam choosing to sacrifice himself for Eve out of a sense of nobility owes something to the Medieval Romance tradition in which the knight boldly faces death in the willingness to give up his life for his lady. That would be an interesting twist on a Hegelian cunning of reason! That the Romance tradition, which Milton rejects, might have influenced some Protestant readings of 1 Timothy 2:13-14!

At any rate, I find Milton's reading more psychologically nuanced than the fascinating sermon that I heard yesterday, for if Adam were choosing to join Eve in her mortal condition out of purely noble motives, then we're confronted with the difficulty of explaining how a still-perfect, undeceived Adam could have made such an astoundingly bad decision as to disobey a divine command given him directly by God.

Milton sees the problem and shows Adam reaching his decision by degrees, each step taking him further along in ever more fallacious reasoning toward his fall. Remaining undeceived in his better knowledge, Adam nevertheless foolishly allows his judgement to be overwhelmed by Eve's charms.

Peters began his sermon by searching for the analogy mentioned in Romans 5:14 between Adam and Christ, but his understanding of the analogy breaks down if Adam and Christ make their choices in dissimilar ways, and the clearest difference is that whereas Christ is presented as accepting death as God's will for him, Adam can only be understood as choosing 'death' against God's will, for he breaks an explicit, divine command.

Moreover, I think that Peters has misread Romans 5:12-14. Let's look again:

12. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13. For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

A careful, contextual reading of the clause "even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression" would have it refer not to all people everywhere and every time but to the biblical period between Adam and Moses, the point being that even for those who did not sin in the same way that Adam had sinned, death still reigned. They did not sin in the same way that Adam did because unlike Adam, they had no law forbidding specific sins, whereas Adam had one overidding 'law': do not eat the fruit of knowledge. After Moses, human beings once again had God's law and thus sinned consciously, as Adam had done -- or so I take Paul to mean.

But now, I'm really curious where this Protestant exegesis that I heard yesterday comes from.