20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
The meaning is plain: what we consider wise is no match even for the foolishness of God; what we consider strong is far less than the strength of God. The part that thwacked me upside the head was verse 23, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block for Jews and folly to Gentiles." Why is Christ crucified a stumbling block? Why folly?
To the Jews, this man claiming to be the Messiah, a political king and conqueror, is also hung upon a cross, thus, accursed. How can he redeem (in human fashion) Israel as such? He's exactly the opposite of what a human society would think it needed. He said we had to eat His body and drink His blood to have life in us. What Jew could accept that counsel? Christ was an enigma to them. He contradicted everything they expected and believed about the Messiah.
To the Greeks, folly. They believed the body to be a prison for the spirit and death to be a release. Why would they want to be raised from the dead? The wisdom of Plato, as wise as it might've been, had given them a wrong view of the relationship between matter and spirit. They ridiculed Paul when he preached the Resurrection.
As Christ Himself said, he was a sign of contradiction.
He said He would be lifted up and draw all men to Himself. He turned a symbol of ignominious death into a symbol of healing. And at the moment of His greatest human weakness, His utter debasement and apparent discredit, He utterly defeated Satan and sin.
The crucifix is the perfect representation of this contradiction: two opposed beams, crossing each other, running perpendicular to each other, a point of decision for us. Right there. Christ at His weakest. Can we accept Satan's defeat? Can we accept an "accursed" Messiah?
5 comments:
Actually, some Greek mystery cults did promise either bodily resurrection or a beatific afterlife.
Reincarnation was also a familiar concept to them.
I'm sure you're correct, but I would venture to guess that these were minority positions at that time or, if they were widely practiced, not contemporaneous with Paul's mission in Greece. Of course, there were also resurrected god stories abounding as well. Dionysius comes to mind.
Our concept of Greek thought at the time tends to be filtered through elite writings, which were heavily neoPlatonist, Stoic or Epicurian.
The populace as a whole seems to have been still following the Olympians -- there's a famous bit in the bible where Barnabas is mistaken for Zeus on entering a city with Paul.
When you said "mystery cult," I was thinking of Mithras or Ishtar rather than garden-variety Greek pantheism. I don't recall them believing in a beatific afterlife or reincarnation.
In Acts, you not only have Barnabas and Paul misidentified in Lystra with Zeus and Hermes respectively, but the inhabitants of Ephesus rose up against Paul for threatening their livelihood (selling statues of Artemis). However, in Athens, Paul is taken to the Aeropagus to discuss Christianity with the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, which is where he was derided for preaching bodily resurrection. In 1 Corinthians, Paul refers to Christ Crucified being folly to the Gentiles (meaning Greeks).
So, yeah, paganism, materialism, and Platonism (neo and not) coincided. But the idea of a human being being crucified and coming back to life was still not your average religious fare. (Gods in some mythical past, maybe.)
"When you said "mystery cult," I was thinking of Mithras or Ishtar rather than garden-variety Greek pantheism. I don't recall them believing in a beatific afterlife or reincarnation."
-- It gradually became a more important part of post-Classic paganism.
I was thinking of the Mysteries of Eleusis or Samothrace, specifically, when I said "mystery cult".
The Eleusian mysteries were based on the myth of Demeter/Persephone, and involved death and ressurection for the Initiate.
Pythagoreans also believed in reincarnation.
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