Gavana
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- Jul 19, 2008
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"Now concerning the matters about which you wrote. It is good for a man NOT to have sexual relations with a woman." – 1 Corinthians 7.1.
"Paul's apparently grudging attitude to marriage provided celibate fanatics in later Christian generations with plenty of ammunition to support their body-hating, women-hating philosophies, their monkish despairs, their flagellations, their hairshirts, their cells and their vows."
– A.N. Wilson, Paul - The Mind of the Apostle, p162.
"Paul's apparently grudging attitude to marriage provided celibate fanatics in later Christian generations with plenty of ammunition to support their body-hating, women-hating philosophies, their monkish despairs, their flagellations, their hairshirts, their cells and their vows."
– A.N. Wilson, Paul - The Mind of the Apostle, p162.
Paul gives general rules on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7 ("marry rather than burn"), castigates immorality in 1 Corinthians 6.13-20 ("your body is a temple") and rages over an instance of incest in 1 Corinthians5. He devotes a whole chapter of Corinthians to the condemnation of a member who "has had his father's wife"!
Paul uses the scandal as a foil to condemn all "fornication" and there is no Christian forgiveness here. The saints are to keep separate from fornicators and the wicked are to be "put away" (1 Corinthians5.13). In Romans, Paul confesses the torments of his own "concupiscence" and makes a rhetorical appeal for "delivery from the body of death."
"For I know that in me , that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing ... I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." – Romans 7.18,24.
And the point of all this puritanical zeal? Nothing in the demeanor, dress or word of the saints can be allowed to jeopardize imminent judgement and the hoped for salvation. Paul presents himself as a role model for the new church. A celibate, such as himself, is not distracted from the Lord's work.
"He who is unmarried cares for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But he who is married cares about the things of the world, how he may please his wife ... The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord ... but she who is married cares about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. This I say ... that you may serve the Lord without distraction." – 1 Corinthians 7.32,35.
The doctrine of abstinence was calculated to rein in free spirits and provide the church with a cadre of unwed Christ-devotees.
This gave early Christianity a considerable organizational advantage over the pagan cults, whose part-time priests for the most part had families and took an active role in the business and pleasures of secular society.
In time, although the doctrines of celibacy and denial would vex the brotherhood with psycho-sexual disorders, it would ensure that Church property would never be threatened by the claims of off-spring and dependents.
As befits a church bent on mass recruitment rather than fidelity to principle, if members of the brethren already had pagan spouses, husbands and wives were, it seems, "sanctified by their partner" (1 Corinthians 7.14) – a remarkable compromise to the harsh precepts of "justification".
Paul had little knowledge of or empathy for Greek culture and dismissed Greek religion as mere idolatry.
But the pragmatic evangelist clearly had his sights on the children of "mixed" marriages, anticipating the Jesuits by more than fourteen centuries – "give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man".