Emma Wasserman

Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide? The Case of Pauline

Anthropology in Romans 7 and 2 Cor 4–5

(forthcoming in The New Testament in its Hellenistic Context, ed. Stanley E.

Porter and Andrew W. Pitts [Brill Academic])

Scholars have often denied that Paul’s anthropology meaningfully appropriates

from Greek or Hellenistic traditions. This essay treats Romans 7 and 2 Corinthians 4–5

with the aim of clarifying some of the terms on which the texts may be understood as

appropriating from certain specific Greek traditions. I argue that both texts appropriate

certain Platonic premises and assumptions about the soul and that Paul’s anthropology

emerges as more coherent in light of these premises and assumptions. In contrast to the

common view of Pauline anthropology as inconsistent and haphazard, I find that a

basically Platonic view of the person makes sense of Paul’s thinking about the nature of

the Christ follower and their coming transformation. Platonic premises also illuminate

the supposed already/not yet tension in Paul’s thought and contextualize Pauline

anthropology as of a piece with ancient thought about human nature.

Perhaps due to the influence of Rudolf Bultmann, scholarship on Paul’s

anthropology has seemed to start from the premise that Paul’s though is unlike or in

explicit opposition to other identifiable ways of thinking about human beings. As is well

known, Bultmann put Pauline anthropology at the center of his existentialist theology and

developed a series of supposedly historical justifications for the uniqueness of Paul’s

1
vision.1 The historical proposals relied on an ever-changing series of opponents (such as

Gnostic Hellenists, Judaizers, and libertines) to make Paul a defender of Protestant

theology against heretical opponents suffering from some species of pride or self-

reliance. In particular, Bultmann insisted that Paul embraces the Cartesian subject-object

split against supposed Gnostic Hellenists who supposedly seek a world and body

renouncing escape. On these terms, texts like Romans 6–8 and 2 Cor 4–5 became

paradigms for the modern Christian subject coming to know itself as an object and

Gnostic Hellenism emerged as a mere foil for a modern theology of heroic Christian

subjectivity.2 The supposed body and world renouncing views of these opponents was

scarcely, if at all, justified by appeals to data outside of Paul’s letters.

A number of later interpreters have challenged one or another part of Bultmann’s

theory. Robert Jewett, for example, rejects the idea that Paul has a consistent and unified

view of the subject but not on the grounds that the formulation is anachronistic. Instead,

Jewett claims that Paul uses anthropological terms inconsistently because of his concern

to polemically transform the language of different opponents in different letters.3 This

line of interpretation involves little consideration of data outside of Paul’s letters and

instead derives very fine-grained hypotheses about existing Hellenistic views from Paul’s

1
This view of Pauline anthropology permeates his Theology of the New Testament (trans. Kendrick
Grobel; New York: Scribner, 1951), e.g. 109, 164–183. For further discussion of Bultmann and his
critics see my monograph: The Death of the Soul in Romans 7: Sin, Death, and the Law in Light of Kate Lawn 8/1/07 2:17 PM
Hellenistic Moral Psychology (WUNT 2.256; Mohr Siebeck, 2008). Other approaches have yielded a Deleted: (
supposedly unique anthropology on very different grounds but have proven less influential. So see David Kate Lawn 10/22/07 6:42 PM
W. Stacey, The Pauline View of Man in Relation to Its Judaic and Hellenistic Backgrounds (London:
Deleted: Schribner
Macmillan, 1956) and more recently Graham J. Warne, Hebrew Perspectives on the Human Person in the
Hellenistic Era: Philo and Paul (Mellen Biblical Press Series, 35; Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen Biblical, 1995)
and Jan Lambrecht, “Brief Anthropological Reflections on 2 Corinthians 4:6–5:10,” in Paul and the
Corinthians: Studies on a Community in Conflict, Essays in Honor of Margaret Thrall, ed. Trevor J. Burke
and J. Keith Elliot [Brill: Leiden, 2003], 259–266.
2
On the Cartesian split and its use by existentialists, see Christopher Gill, Personality in Greek Epic,
Tragedy, and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) 2–3.
3
Jewett, Paul’s Anthropological Terms: A Study of Their Use in Conflict Settings (Leiden: Brill, 1971),
esp. 396–401 on supposed divine man missionaries in 2 Corinthians and Gnostics in Romans.

2
letters alone. The results again yield a Christian view that is unique (if uniquely

inconsistent) because of its supposed opposition to Judaizing legalism or world

renouncing dualistic Gnostic-Hellenism. A more recent essay by Hans Dieter Betz

similarly makes Hellenism into a foil for Paul’s thinking about the human being.4

Though Betz more seriously entertains non-Pauline evidence, he is quick to arrive at a

view of Hellenistic dualism as body and world renouncing. To accomplish this, Betz

generalizes about Hellenistic culture by appealing to Platonism, finding a body rejecting

Platonic-Hellenism in the idea that the immortal soul separates from the body at death.5

This view confuses Platonic body-soul relations during life with the end of that

relationship at death and then projects this confusion onto a supposed cultural

effervescence called Hellenism. Similarly, Theo Heckel attempts to correct against some

of Bultmann’s excesses by developing a view of Corinthian opponents as religious

Platonists who deny “the body any meaning at all in the life of a Christian.”6 Though

Heckel laudably focuses on Platonic thinking rather than some vaguely defined

Hellenism, he shows little appreciation for the complexity of the body-soul relation in

this tradition.7 The result is, again, that Paul’s thinking emerges as unique and uniquely

oppositional in light of a supposed world renouncing Greek intellectual tradition.

An important essay by David Aune more seriously considers the Hellenistic

traditions so often made antithetical to Paul’s thought. Though he offers many sharp

4
Betz, “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ (o9 e1sw a1nqrwpoj) in the Anthropology of
Paul,” NTS 46 (2000): 315–341.
5
Betz, “Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’,” 323–324.
6
Heckel, “Body and Soul in Paul,” in Psyche and Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body
Problem from Antiquity to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003), 122. See also his more thorough
study in Der Inner Mensch: Der paulinsche Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs (WUNT 53; Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1993).
7
I am more sympathetic with Heckel’s argument that Paul’s formulation makes the mind or soul passive
and dependent on God (“Body and Soul in Paul,” 127–130).

3
criticisms of the ways that Bultmann and his heirs have construed Hellenism, Aune’s

alternative creates a picture of a diffuse and vaguely defined culture of Hellenism that

contributes only instrumentally to expressing Paul’s ultimately Jewish religious thought.

For example, though he understands texts like 2 Cor 4–5 as consistent with some kind of

Hellenistic dualism, he is quick to minimize its importance:

Since the framework of Pauline thought is largely determined by his apocalyptic

worldview (rather than a particular model of the cosmos), there is a tendency in
Paul to conceptualize human nature and existence as a microcosmic version of a
Christianized form of apocalyptic eschatology—that is, the apocalyptic structure
of history becomes paradigmatic for understanding human nature. Just as Paul’s
Christian form of apocalyptic thought is characterized by a historical or
eschatological dualism consisting of the juxtaposition of the old age and the new
age, so his view of human nature can similarly reflect a homologous dualistic
structure. The change in ages thus has microcosmic ramifications for individual
existence (2 Cor 5:17), where the microcosmic dualism is experienced in terms if
the tension between the ‘already’/‘not yet’ polarity.8

Though Aune does take seriously the Platonic language about the inner and outer person,

he understands this as part of a diffuse hodge-podge of Hellenistic cultural ideas whose

importance is secondary or tertiary to Paul’s essentially Jewish message. An unstated

premise seems to be that only Jews and Christians have resources for thinking about how

the human being relates to time, the gods, judgment, and transformation. Instead of

imagining Paul as productively synthesizing various traditions on points where they may

plausibly be construed as homologous, a Paul emerges who has a fundamentally Jewish

core to which an ill-defined Hellenistic thinking is added like brick a brack. Another

result is that Paul’s anthropology emerges as inconsistent:

8
“Human Nature and Ethics,” 304. This discussion also reflects Aune’s interests in reconciling some of
the views of Bultmann with those of Ernst Käsemann. For critiques of Käsemann’s supposedly apocalyptic
view of Paul’s anthropology, see Bruce Kaye, The Thought Structure of Romans with Special Reference
to Chapter 6 (Austin, Tex.: Schola, 1979), esp. 30–47; Stanley Stowers, A Rereading of Romans:
Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), 179–189; and my
Death of the Soul in Romans 7.

4
 He [Paul] evinces no concern to develop a consistent view of human nature. Even
though he uses a variety of Greek anthropological terms to explain aspects of
human behavior in sections of his letters, he often does so on an ad hoc basis with
the result that there is little overall consistency evident when these passages are
compared. Paul was an eclectic who drew upon a variety of anthropological
conceptions in a manner subsidiary or tangential to the more immediate concerns
he addresses in his extant letters.9

Though Aune is correct that Paul shows no interest in developing the kind of systematic

presentation of moral psychology that one finds among certain intellectuals, philosophers

working at the level of Aristotle or Chrysippus do not exhaust the pool of types of

intellectuals to which Paul may be fruitfully compared. In contrast, it is argued below

that a reconsideration of the evidence for specifically Platonic views of the person allows

for a more coherent view of Paul’s anthropology in Rom 7 and 2 Cor 4–5.

Souls and Theories of Souls

The well-known Platonic soul of reason, spirit, and appetite explains the human

being as a composite of three different types of motivating desires.10 It is reason’s desire

for wisdom, the highest good, that motivates reasoning, thinking, and speaking.

Likewise, the spirited part desires goods like honor and glory which have the effect of

motivating emotions like anger, fear, and shame, whereas appetites desire the most base

and multifarious bodily pleasures like food, drink, and sex. In the ideal situation reason

subdues and rules over the lower faculties so that the person achieves full self-mastery;

conversely, if the rebellious appetites go undisciplined, they can effectively disable

reason and motivate the person to pursue unstable pleasures with the result that they

9
“Human Nature and Ethics,” 291.
10
This draws on Plato’s theory as described in the Phaedrus, Republic, and the Timaeus rather than the
earlier Phaedo. See A. W. Price, Mental Conflict (London: Routledge, 1995), 30–103 and John M. Cooper,
“Plato’s Theory of Human Motivation,” in Reason and Emotion: Essays on Ancient Moral Psychology and
Ethical Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 118–137.

5
become vicious and immoral. The appetites are especially dangerous because they seek

transient pleasures that do not allow for stable satisfaction and therefore run to excess.

Left unchecked, the appetites would storm the “citadel” of reason and the person (as a

whole body-soul complex) would become a glutton, drunkard, or other species of

extreme degenerate.

Plato’s theory explains bad actions and dispositions as produced by a conflict

between rational and non-rational desires and also treats the body and flesh as dangerous

because of their relation to the appetites. In brief, appetites desire unstable pleasures but

they also rely on the bodily senses to rouse them by identifying external pleasures like

beautiful bodies or delicious foods.11 The appetites are thus problematic both because

they desire unstable pleasures that lead to excess and because they rely on the senses that

only provide knowledge about the imperfect material world.12 In contrast to the senses,

the mind is capable of turning inward and alienating itself from the body and the lower

faculties to achieve a higher form of knowledge associated with the forms and an

immaterial noetic realm. Thus, Platonic traditions of moral psychology show a tendency

to emphasize the evils of the body because of the way they relate to the most threatening

part of the soul, the appetites. Though the relations between reason, appetite, body,

sense, and knowledge is actually more complex, writers sometimes play the body-

appetites-plesures-senses complex off against reason or mind by using use short-hand

dualisms like body versus soul, reason versus passions, or virtue versus vice. Though

11
Though they cannot reason in a developed sense, the appetites do have some kinds of low-level rational
capacities; see e.g. Christopher Gill, “Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on
Emotions?” in Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, 113–148.
12
So in the Phaedrus (Phaedr. 253c–254e) the appetites are the more wild and uncontrolled of the two
horses and only by constant and hard reigning-in can reason make the appetitive horse weak and obedient.
See e.g. Tim. 86b–90a and Galen, On the Passions and Errors of the Soul (Kühn, 5.28) on cultivating the
strength and weakness of the soul’s parts.

6
scholars of Paul often insist that Platonism involves renouncing the body as evil, the

Platonic tradition actually construes the task of reason as involving disciplining and

ruling over the lower faculties so as to create harmonious obedience to reason and hence

good dispositions and actions. However negatively Platonists may construe the body,

flesh, pleasures, senses, and appetites in some contexts, the goal is not to destroy or be rid

of the body but to use reason to subdue and dominate the lower parts of the soul and its

menacing allies: bodily senses and pleasures.13 Though the tradition allows for harmony

between the soul’s parts in the best-case scenario, it also construes this as so rarely

achieved that some level of inner conflict becomes normative for virtually all embodied

souls.

Though later thinkers make the tri-partite theory of the soul into the Platonic

position, appeal to a tri-partite model does not necessarily commit a writer to Platonism.

For example, Aristotle rejects Platonic metaphysics outright but still adapts the trip-

partite divided soul to his own ends and Antiochus of Ascalon weds a materialist physics

to a Platonic moral psychology.14 These philosophers engage in adapting, synthesizing,

and changing the thought of their predecessors and opponents because of their interests in

resolving certain persistent problems with those philosophical traditions. Different kinds

of synthesis, however, appear among writers like Philo of Alexandria and the author of

the Wisdom of Solomon. Though neither Philo nor the unknown author of Wisdom

shows much interest in developing Platonism or Stoicism, they do share broad

interests in synthesizing certain Jewish traditions with philosophical cosmology and

13
So Philo: “the business of wisdom is to be estranged from the body with its appetites” (Philo, Leg. 1.103;
cf. 3.41, 81, 168).
14
See Gail Fine, On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Forms (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); on
Antiochus, see John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 BC to 220 AD (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Press, 1996), 52–106.

7
moral psychology.15 In doing so, they tend to identify plausible points of similarity

and congruence among the traditions while suppressing differences. In this light,

consider how the opening of Wisdom uses Stoic ideas about the nature and function of

pneu~ma:

For Wisdom will not enter a fraudulent mind,

nor make her home in a body mortgaged to sin.
The holy spirit, that divine tutor, will fly form cunning
strategem;
she will withdraw from unintelligent thoughts
and will take umbrage at the approach of injustice.
Wisdom is a benevolent spirit
and she will not hold a blasphemer immune from his own
utterances;
because God is a witness of his thoughts,
the real guardian of his mind,
who hears his every word.
For the spirit of the Lord fills the world,
and that which holds all things together has knowledge of all
articulate sound. (Wis 1:4–7)

The text personifies Wisdom as a being that can enter or withdraw from human minds, a

spirit, and perhaps even a stand-in for God who is “witness to his thoughts,” judge, and

defender of human minds. Wisdom’s relation to spirit becomes most clearly Stoic in

alluding to the idea of the pneu~ma as an intelligent substance permeating the world and

holding all things together. Thus, verse 7 appears in retrospect to explain what has come

before: the pneu~ma can be personified as wisdom, but is conceived as a pneumatic

substance that permeates the universe, holds all together, and enables God to “hear” the

true thoughts of humans. The author here adapts a Stoic concept of pneu~ma because it

fits his interests and plans, even though those interests and plans clearly do not include a

15
On Wisdom’s appropriation of philosophical thought see Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New
Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1979); on Philo’s Stoicizing
Platonism see Dillon’s The Middle Platonists, 139–183, and the important essays on Philo’s Platonism
by Gregory E. Sterling, David T. Runia, David Winston, Thomas H. Tobin, and John Dillon collected
in Studia Philonica Annual 5 (1993): 95–155.

8
systematic exposition of Stoic thought. This appropriation involves the exploitation of

plausible points homology and congruence between the Stoic theory, especially in

understanding the pneu~ma as permeating the world, as responsible for human

reasoning, and as divine and intelligent, and Stoic and Jewish ideas about God as an all-

seeing judge of human behavior.16 Certainly, the writer does not show an interest in

developing this thought in an intellectually rigorous way, but attention to the use of

certain originally Stoic ideas explains much about the language and argument of the text.

An example drawn from Philo’s writings further illustrates the productive

synthesis of different traditions, in this case Stoic, Platonic, and Jewish ones. Stoic

thought about the soul opposes Plato’s theory in arguing that there are no lower

faculties, just a single rational mind, often called the h9gemo/nikon or command

center, that reasons correctly or incorrectly.17 The Stoic tradition also dismisses

Plato’s intelligible world and insists that everything that exists is made of different

grades of matter, suffused with an intelligent, active, and divine substance often

called pneu~ma. Yet, from a more general perspective, the theories share clear

points of sympathy in that they agree that the potential for virtue hangs on the ability

of the mind (on the Stoic theory) or the reasoning part (on the Platonic) to function

appropriately. Similarly, though Stoics propose a single unified mind, they can also

16
See Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 102 for a discussion of Stoic texts that suggest similar images of
divine surveillance.
17
See Tad Brennan, “The Old Stoic Theory of Emotion,” in The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed.
Juha Sihvola and Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), 21–70. Scholars distinguish the
early Stoic theory of mind (sometimes termed the “orthodox” Stoic account) from later Stoic psychology
associated with Posidonius, but John Cooper (“Posidonius on Emotions,” in Emotions in Hellenistic
Philosophy, 71–111) and Christopher Gill (“Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on
Emotions?” in Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, 113–148) have both challenged the theory on the
grounds that Galen misrepresents Posidonius. On points of interaction and synthesis between Stoicism and
Platonism, see Platonic Stoicism–Stoic Platonism: The Dialogue between Platonism and Stoicism in
Antiquity, ed. Mauro Bonazzi and Christoph Helmig (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2007).

9
speak of the different faculties of this singular mind, the relation between soul and

body, and several late Stoics are even charged by Galen with taking over Platonic tri-

partition.18 Though Philo is helpfully understood as a Platonist, appreciating such

points of homology at the very general level helps to explain why he sometimes

combines certain aspects of Platonism and Stoicism as it suits his larger allegorizing

aims. So Philo allegorizes the creation account in Genesis:

And therefore the lawgiver held that the substance of the soul is twofold, blood
being that of the soul as a whole, and the divine breath or spirit that of its most
dominant part (e1doce tw~| nomoqe/th| ditth\n kai\ th\n ou0si/an ei]nai
yuxh~j, ai[ma me\n th~j o3lhj, tou~ d’ h9gemonikwta/tou pneu~ma qei~on).
Thus he says plainly that “the soul of every flesh is the blood” [Lev 17:11]. He
does well in assigning the blood with its flowing stream to the riot of the manifold
flesh, for each is akin to the other. On the other hand he did not make the
substance of the mind depend on anything created, but represented it as breathed
upon by God. For the maker of all, he says, “blew into his face the breath of life,
and man became a living soul” [Gen 2:7]; just as we are also told that he was
fashioned after the image of his maker [Gen 1:27]. So we have two kinds of men,
one that of those who live by reason, the divine inbreathing, the other of those
who live by blood and the pleasure of the flesh. This last is a moulded clod of
earth, the other is the faithful impress of the divine image (w3ste ditto\n ei]doj
a0nqrw/pwn, to\\ me\n qei/w| pneu/mati logismw~| biou/ntwn, to\ de\
ai3mati kai\ sarko\j h9donh|~ zw/ntwn. tou~to to\ ei]do/j e0sti pla/sma gh~j,
e0kei~no de\ qei/aj ei0ko/noj e0mfere\j e0kmagei~on). (Her. 55–57)

The Stoic language of pneu~ma and h9gemonikwta/tou hangs together here with

Platonic notions of the rational part of the soul as the image or imprint of the divine.19

That is, the Stoics claim that the mind is a central command center – the

h9ghmo/nikon – made up of a fine material substance, pneu~ma; Philo here simply

adds the Platonic lower faculties and treats the Stoic commanding faculty as if it were

18
Cooper (“Posidonius on Emotions,” 71–111) and Gill (“Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic
Thinking on Emotions?”, 113–148) have both argued that this is a polemical misrepresentation. Reed College 4/26/08 3:04 PM
19
See David Winston, Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati, Ill.: Hebrew Formatted: Justified, Indent: First line: 0"
Union College Press, 1985), 28–29.

10
the Platonic reasoning part. The result is that blood and the flesh function as stand-

ins for the lower parts of the soul in sharp contrast to the reasoning part designated as

special by its direct connection to the divine inbreathing. Though Philo’s thought is

generally Platonic, the appropriation and intermingling of Stoic and Platonic language

is probably inspired by language about God’s breath in Genesis. The ghost of Plato or

Chrysippus might shudder at such bastardizing harmonization, but these need not haunt

modern scholarship.

The Death of the Soul in Romans 7

The speaker that emerges in Romans 7 explains how sin “came to life”

because (in some way) of the law, that it has been deceived and killed by sin, and then

in verses 14–25 insists that though it truly knows and desires the good, sin frustrates it

at every turn. The result is a lengthy series of repetitions, as the speaker in verses 14–

25 states some eleven times that it wants to do the good but cannot because sin

enslaves, makes war, imprisons, and kills it. Taking certain originally Platonic ideas

seriously here explains the alienation between the speaker and sin, the speaker and the

body, and the alienation of the whole person from the good and the goodness of

God’s law in particular.20

As noted already, the Platonic divided soul imagines immorality and vice as

produced by the successful rebellion of the non-rational faculties, especially the

appetites. Though most cases fall in-between, the theory imagines the best-case

20
This compliments Stowers’ (Rereading Romans, 269–272) basic argument that 7:7–25 works with a
Platonic moral psychology but better explains certain difficult features of the text by considering Platonic
traditions of representing extreme cases of immorality. See also his “Self-Mastery,” in Paul and the
Greco-Roman World, ed. Paul Sampley (Trinity Press International, 2003) 524–50.

11
scenario as one where reason has completely mastered the passions and appetites and

the worst as the perverse, lawless rule of appetites that rise to rule in reason’s place.

Plato’s Republic imagines a range of possible types and treats the most extreme case

as that of the tyrannical man in book 9. The sustained analogy imagines an evil

appetitive coup, replete with armies, military commanders, and metaphors and

analogies relating to combat, enslavement, and rule. These analogies are easily

understood as an outgrowth of the particular way that Plato imagines the soul’s

hierarchy, with self-mastery entailing reason’s rule and the opposite a kind of

perverse monstrous rule. In the context of the Republic, the discussion of this

extreme case functions to elaborate and develop Plato’s broader arguments, but this

particular case does not seem to have enjoyed wide influence, probably because it is

just an outgrowth of the more basic theory. For example, Galen’s more systematic

treatments of Platonic moral psychology focus on the core theory of tri-partition and

claim to develop some if its finer points over and against the Stoic theory of

Chrysippus.21 Some writings, however, appeal to such extreme cases in the context of

moral exhortation. So Galen’s treatise On the Passions and Errors of the Soul, written

as a series of moral lessons for a supposed student, evokes such a worst-case scenario as

a warning: “Strive to hold this most excessive (or violent) power in check before it grows

and acquires unconquerable strength (i0sxu\n dusni/khton). For then, even if you

should want to, you will not be able to hold it in check; then you will say what I heard a

certain lover say – that you wish to stop but you cannot (e0qe/lein me\n pau/sasqai,

21
e.g. Hippocr. et Plat. 4.39–44.

12
mh\ du/nasqai de\).”22 This text imagines a worst-case scenario for the purpose of

moral exhortation or instruction. Similarly, Philo makes quite broad use of such extreme

types as they serve his interests in developing moralizing antitheses such as that between

virtue and vice, extreme moral goodness and badness, Godliness and its opposite.

Consider how he explains God’s warning to Adam that he will die if he eats from the tree

of life:

The death is of two kinds, one that of the man in general, the other that of the soul in
particular. The death of the man is the separation of the soul from the body but the death
of the soul is the decay of virtue and the bringing in of wickedness (o9 de\ yuxh~j
qa/natoj a0reth~j me\n fqora/ e0sti, kaki/aj de\ a0na/lhyij). It is for this reason that
God says not only “die” but “die the death,” indicating not the death common to us all,
but that special death properly so called, which is that of the soul becoming entombed in
passions and wickedness of all kinds (o3j e0sti yuxh~j e0ntumbeuome/nhj pa/qeisi).
And this death is practically the antithesis of the death which awaits us all. The latter is a
separation of combatants that had been pitted against one another, body and soul, to wit
(e0kei~noj me\n ga\r dia/krisi/j e0sti tw~n sugkriqe/ntwn sw/matoj te kai\ yuxh~j).
The former, on the other hand, is the meeting of the two in conflict (ou3toj de\
tou0nanti/on su/nodoj a0mfoi~n). And in this conflict the worse, the body, overcomes
(kratou~ntoj me\n tou~ xei/ronoj sw/matoj), and the better, the soul, is overcome
23
(kratoume/nou de\ tou~ krei/ttonoj yuxh~j). (Leg. 1.105–107)
This text is informed by Platonism in that at least three Platonic premises drive the

allegory: that the soul is composed of rational and irrational sources of motivation

(with good and bad behavior resulting from whichever source dominates); that the

passions co-conspire with the body and flesh, (which can leave the mind as a tiny

inner person imprisoned by passions-body-senses); and that this conflict between

reason and the passions-body-senses complex, however it happens to be going at any

one time, persists so long as the soul is embodied. The particular imagery and

22
Kühn, 5.29; Harkins, 48. I have modified the translation from Galen: On the Passions and Errors of the
Soul, trans. Paul W. Harkins (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 1963). The Greek text is from
Claudii Galeni opera omnia, ed. C. G. Kühn (Paris: Bibliotheque Interuniversitaire de Medicine; De
Boccard, 2001), 5:1 and page references are for both Kühn and Harkins.
23
See the excellent essay by Dieter Zeller, “The Life and Death of the Soul in Philo of Alexandria: The Use
and Origin of the Metaphor,” Studia Philonica Annual 7 (1995): 19–55. Zeller’s study, however, only
seeks to explain the origins of the metaphors rather than the underlying phenomenon that they capture.

13
language about death is quite unusual for the Platonic tradition, but in context it

emerges as a metaphor for domination rather than destruction, consistent with more

common metaphors relating to rule, slavery, and warfare.

Platonic traditions and discourses explain much about the argument, imagery, and

metaphors operative in Romans 7, especially the language about passions, body, sin,

flesh, and the mind and inner person. Taking Platonism seriously highlights the

connection between the monologue and 7:5: “when we were in the flesh, the sinful

passions were aroused by the law and worked in our bodily members to bear fruit to

death.” The monologue that begins in 7:7–25 first explains that the law aroused sinful

passions (7–13) and then links this bad response to the law to a larger complex of issues

with good and evil more generally (14–25). Platonic traditions are especially helpful in

explaining the language about sin as an anthropomorphized representation of passions as

well as the language about death, imprisonment, and warfare.24 Rom 7 identifies the

passions as sinful (7:5), distinguishes sharply between sin and the law (7:7–12), and

attributes to sin the activities of seizing an opportunity (7:8; 7:11), inciting desires (7:8),

24
Other theories about sin have proved popular. So Käsemann (e.g. Commentary on Romans, Trans.
Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), 150; “On Paul’s Anthropology,” in
Perspectives on Paul, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 1–31) influentially argued that
sin was an invading apocalyptic power and the theory has gained wide support. Others have understood sin
in terms of an evil impulse, e.g. Leander Keck (“The Absent Good: The Significance of Rom 7:18a,” in
Text und Geschichte: Facetten theologischen Arbeitens aus dem Freundes und Schülerkreis, Dieter
Lührmann zum 60 Geburtstag, ed. Stefan Maser and Egbert Schlarb [Marburg: Elwert, 1999], 66–75);
Roland Murphy (“Yetzer at Qumran,” Biblica 39 [1958]: 334–344); and Joel Marcus (“The Evil Inclination
in the Epistle of James,” CBQ 44 [1982]: 606–621; “The Evil Inclination in the Letters of Paul,” JBS 8
[1986]: 8–21). Still others have claimed to find connections between the monologue of Romans 7 and
supposed confessional texts from Qumran, e.g. Mark Seifrid (“The Subject of Rom 7:14–25,” Novum
Testamentum 34 [1992]: 322), Joseph Fitzmyer (Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary [New York: Doubleday, 1993], 465–466), and Peter Stuhlmacher (Paul’s Letter to the
Romans: A Commentary, trans. Scott J. Hafemann [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1994], 109–
110) who combines the Jewish confessional and evil impulse interpretations. These theories identify broad
but vaguely defined points of similarity between texts taken as representing distinct traditions and tend not
to explain how these supposed traditions illuminate much of the specific language and argument of Paul’s
text.

14
coming to life (7:9), deceiving (7:11), killing (7:11), working death “in me” (7:13),

enslaving (7:14), dwelling “in me” (7:17; 7:20), and in 7:23 and 7:25 the speaker claims

that it is made a captive by, at war with, and enslaved to the “law of sin.” As noted

already, Platonic writers use similar language to explain the rise of the appetitive part of

the soul to rule in place of reason or mind. So Plato’s appetitive king rules and enslaves

(Rep. 8.553d–e), and his lawless appetitive ruler gets away from reason, commits every

type of vice and immorality (Rep. 9.571d), leads other desires (Rep. 9.573a), slays,

deceives, and incites the other appetites to open rebellion with the result that it succeeds

at enslaving the mind (Rep. 9.577d–e); Philo warns, “lest the mind should, without

noticing it, be made captive and enslaved” (laqw\n o99 nou~j ai0xma/lwtoj

a0ndrapodisqei\j), by pleasure (Sacr. 26); Galen warns that the “the appetitive power

often waxes so strong that it hurls us into love beyond all cure” (e0piqumhtikh\n

du/namin ei0j a0ni/aton e1rwta polla/kij e0mbalei~n);25 and Plutarch’s vice stirs the

appetites and “awakens” (e0panegei/rei) depravity and wickedness (Virt. vit. 101A).

Like Rom 7, these analogies, images, and metaphors creatively elaborate on Platonic

assumptions as to the nature, character, and relation between reason and the passions.

Taking sin in Rom 7 as a representation of the evil passions that have gained power

over the soul makes sense of sin’s attributes and functions in the monologue as well as

the role of passions, desires, and wickedness in texts like Rom 6:12 and 1:18–32.

Platonic traditions also make sense of the speaker here as reason or mind describing its

disempowerment at the hands of the passions that have risen to rule over, imprison, and

25
Kühn, 5.29; Harkins, 48.

15
metaphorically “kill” it.26 Verses 7–13 explain that the law aroused sinful passions (“sin,

finding an opportunity in the commandment, worked in me all kinds of desires”) with the

result that sin “comes to life” and the speaker “dies.” The language about life and death

here appears coherent when understood as conveying the domination of the passions

while the speaker emerges as reason or mind, displaying its characteristic attributes:

reason, reflection, judgment, and voice. From yet another angle, Platonic traditions

explain why the monologue develops a picture of spatial alienation between the speaker

and sin, uses this alienation to explain how sin and the speaker have antithetical

motivations towards evil and good, and then explains that the speaker cannot do what it

really wants (whether the good, the law, or God’s will generally) because it has been so

disempowered and imprisoned by sin.

This interpretation finds support in the language of mind and inner person in verses

21–23. Here the speaker explains its plight anew: “I find it to be a law that when I want

to do what is good, evil lies in wait for me; for though I delight in the law of God in my

inner person, I see another law in the members of my body making war on the law of my

mind and making me a captive to the law of sin in my bodily members” (7:21–23). On

Platonic terms, these statements make sense as reflecting again on the plight of mind

overwhelmed by passions. In verse 21 the “law” is the principle that reason cannot put

26
The identity of the speaker has been widely disputed with no consensus emerging. The main positions
are exemplified as follows: the autobiographical reading, C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans
(London: Collins, 1959), 104–105; that of a Jewish boy prior to a mature interaction with the law, W. D.
Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (New York: Harper &
Row, 1948), 15–35; Robert Gundry, “The Moral Frustration of Paul Before His Conversion: Sexual Lust in
Romans 7:7–25,” in Pauline Studies: Essays Presented to F. F. Bruce on His 70th Birthday, ed. Donald A.
Hagner and Murry J. Harris (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980), 228–245; the plight of mankind
generally in 7:7–13 and the Christian in 7:14–25, C. E. B. Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979), 341; James D. G. Dunn, Commentary on Romans (Dallas: Word, 1988),
382–383; the unregenerate human being generally, Käsemann, Commentary, 192; Fitzmyer, Romans, 462–
477; Adam, Israel, and Paul himself: Brendan Byrne, Romans (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1996), 218.

16
its good judgments into action because of sin, a restatement of the problem discussed in

verses 14–20. Similarly, when verse 23 attributes to body/sin sin its own “law,” this

make sense as a play on words expressing sin’s motivating desires for evil, in sharp

contrast to the mind’s grasp of God’s good and just and holy law in verse 22. On these

terms, verses 21–23 restate the agonizing conflict developed from verse 14 onward while

bringing the problem explicitly back to the issue of God’s law. These verses explain the

mind’s inability to do God’s law as an outgrowth of a terrible internal plight that prevents

mind from doing anything that it knows to be good. Taking the speaker as reason also

explains why it identifies itself in the third person with the mind and inner person.

Though it may seem strange that the speaker can speak about itself as my “my mind” and

“my inner person,” this too is a regular feature of the dialogical style prominent in just

this kind of interior monologue.27 Reason at once recognizes the good, God’s law, and

the evils of sin and also comes to understand that it is utterly powerless to put any of this

into action because of the dominion of sin.

Though of course they can only take us so far in understanding Paul’s interests

and arguments in Romans, a certain set of Platonic premises helps to make sense of the

language and argument of chapter 7. Paul does not seem at all interested in Platonism for

Platonism’s sake, but he need not have such interests for the appropriation of Platonism

to be meaningful. For instance, when Romans 7 is read together with chapter 8, it seems

clear that the resolution to the terrible plight comes only with a special pneumatic

intervention. As others have noted, this likely draws on certain Stoic traditions, implying

27
Stowers (Rereading Romans, 269–272); The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Chico, Calif.:
Scholars Press, 1981); Christopher Gill, “Did Chryssippus Understand Medea?” Phronesis 28 (1983):
136–49; and “Two Monologues of Self-division: Euripides, Medea 1021–80; and Seneca, Medea 893–
977,” in Homo Viator: Classical Essays for John Bramble, ed. M. Whitby and P. Hardie (Bristol: Classical,
1987), 25–37.

17
that Paul synthesizes parts of different philosophical and other traditions, just as he draws

on various Jewish writings and discourses.28 Whatever else Paul means by pneu~~ma,

it seems at least partially to resolve the extreme condition developed at such length in

chapter 7, probably because Paul conceives of it as empowering the mind so that it has a

chance at winning the war within. Though the situation has changed in a fundamental

way, Rom 8 continues to work with a Platonic alienation between mind and passions,

since however revivified, the true Christ follower must still struggle with the body while

it awaits the transformation of that body at the parousia. This explains the way Rom

8:1–13 poses life “according to the flesh” and “according to the spirit” as antithetical and

also explains exhortations like “put to death the deeds of the body” (8:13) as expressing

an ideal moral psychological state where mind subdues the passions. The larger picture

seems to be that Paul appropriates from Platonism as it serves his larger interests in

developing the situation of the Christ believer’s past as one of unmitigated wickedness,

its present as engaged in ongoing struggle and conflict, and its future as involving another

transformation when God will remake it into something better. Such an appropriation

from Platonism makes sense when these texts are understood as creatively synthesizing

and productively harmonizing different traditions and discourses. Such an approach

obviates the explanatory power of any supposed dichotomy between Hellenism and

Judaism or philosophical thought verses religious or apocalyptic thinking. Instead, it

suggests that this particular Pauline synthesis involves the harmonization of different

kinds of traditions and that such harmonization makes sense because of certain general

28
See e.g. Stowers, “Self-Mastery,” 524–50, on the synthesis of Platonism and Stoicism in Rom 7–8. I
find Engberg-Pedersen’s (Paul and the Stoics, 239–246; “Reception,” 32–57) Stoic reading of chapters 7–8
less satisfactory, as it ignores the ways that the images, language, and argument reflect Platonic traditions
of moral psychology rather than Stoic ones.

18
points of similarity, such as that both Jewish apocalyptic and Greek philosophical thought

involve esoteric written traditions that have much to say about wisdom, true knowledge,

the nature of God, the cosmos, and God’s plan for human history.

Platonic Alienation in 2 Cor 4–5

Just as Rom 8 characterizes the past agony of the Christ-follower as only partially

resolved by the gifts of the pneu~ma (8:1–13), so also 2 Cor 4:16–5:5 focuses on the

inner person as the locus of true understanding, faithfulness, and obedience while it

struggles with the body with which it is stuck. Platonic ideas and images explain much

about the way the text depicts alienation and conflict between the inner and outer person,

the temporary and the eternal, the earthly and the heavenly, as well as the suffering this

conflict produces and the way this all effects the soul’s future judgment.

2 Cor 4:16–5:5 creates an image of the idealized Christ-follower as engaged in

agonizing conflict arising out of an alienation between inner and outer persons. So Paul

writes:

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer person is wasting away, our inner
person is being renewed day by day. For this slight moment of affliction is
working in us for the eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, since we look
not to what is seen, but to what cannot be seen. For what is seen is temporary, but
what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is
destroyed, we have a building made by God, a house not made by human hands,
eternal, in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with the
heavenly dwelling, if having taken it off, we are not found naked. For while we
are still in the tent we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be
unclothed, but further clothed, so that the mortal body may be swallowed up by
life. The one who has made us for this very thing is God, the one who has given
us the down-payment of the pneu~ma.

The text can be helpfully understood as appropriating from Platonism in that it uses

Platonic language to evoke an extended body/soul alienation and that it understands this

19
alienation as arising out of the special and antithetical attributes and capacities of body

and soul. So the discussion fittingly opens in verse 16 by positing spatial alienation

between the inner and outer person. The image of the inner person comes originally from

an analogy for the tri-partite soul in book 9 of the Republic where the inner man

represents the mind in contrast to the lion of the spirited part and the multifarious,

grotesque, many-headed monstrosity of the appetites.29 More significantly for this text

and Rom 7:22, the Platonic analogy expresses the sense in which the mind is both

threatened by the lower faculties and also holds a special place as the seat of the person’s

most characteristic functions: reason, judgment, knowledge, and voice. The image of the

tiny inner man—the true person within the person—captures the constraint and

possibilities of the tri-partite model; while it celebrates the mind and its reasoning

capacities it also gives it a diminutive status since it must try to rule over the much larger

and rebellious lower faculties while simultaneously encased in a body whose senses

mislead mind and always threaten to join forces with the appetites. While 4:16 alone

does not emphasize the reasoning capacities of the inner person, the subsequent verses

recast the conflict between o9 e1sw h9mw~n [a1nqrwpoj] and the e1cw h9mw~n

a1nqrwpoj in terms of true seeing and imperfect seeing, good and bad objects of seeing

(the temporary and liable to decay versus the eternal and heavenly), depict the mind as

longing to be free from the earthly body, and insist that the conflict yields tension,

groaning, and suffering for the embodied soul. On these terms, the text uses the imagery

29
Rep. 9.588c–591b. For a persuasive argument that 1 Cor 15:32 alludes to the lion and the many-headed
beast see Abraham J. Malherbe, “The Beasts at Ephesus,” in Paul and the Popular Philosophers
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 79–89.

20
of the inner person not as an aside, but as a point of entry into a discourse about the

situation of the believer weighed down in an agonizing struggle with the body.30

Though 2 Cor 4:16–18 does not focus on the mind as the seat of knowledge and

reason, it does treat the inner person as a special invisible site of the renewing activity of

God and makes it superior to the body in both its capacity for perception and its potential

for persistence in an immortal state. So verses 4:16–18 associate the body with decay

and with imperfectly “seeing” the temporary world in contrast to the inner person that has

the capacity for truly “seeing” the heavenly and eternal. These connections make sense

along Platonic lines that likewise give the mind the capacity (at least) for understanding

the true heavenly realities in contrast to the bodily senses that show us only the imperfect

world.31 These and subsequent verses also makes this inner person the basis for renewal

and optimism about the eschatological future. So verse 16 introduces both future hope

and present struggle: “we do not lose heart, but even if our outer self is being destroyed,

out inner self is being renewed every day.” The inner person becomes the site of renewal

and hope, reminiscent of the language about renewal in Rom 12:2, “do not be conformed

to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind (metamorfou~sqe th|~

a0nakainw/sei tou~ noo\j) so that you approve the will of God, what is good and

acceptable and perfect.” Though Romans 12 does not explain how this renewal has come

about, it seems to reflect the kind of renewed state discussed in 8:1–13, made possible by

30
In contrast, C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper
and Row, 1973), 146 dismisses any psychological dualism in 4:16 on the ground that the tension is
eschatological and so supposedly not psychological; Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (New York:
Doubleday, 1984), 261–301 similarly entertains the relevance of so-called Hellenistic ideas like the inner
and outer person but minimizes their importance by insisting that in context their meaning is uniquely
Pauline. Similarly, see Aune, “Human Nature and Ethics,” 301–302 and Heckel, “Body and Soul,” 129–
130, discussed above.
31
This set of relations is captured by Philo’s exhortation: “Why then, soul of man, when you should live
the virgin life in the house of God and cling to knowledge, do you stand aloof from them and embrace the
outward sense, which unmans and defiles you?” (Cher. 52; Loeb trans. modified).

21
the pneu~ma. 2 Cor 5:5 may similarly suggest that Paul envisions this renewal as

somehow involving the gifts of the pneu~ma, as it refers to it as a guarantee from God.

Taken together, these texts suggest significant points of continuity in Paul’s thinking

about the mind, body, flesh, and pneu~ma in Rom 7, 8:1–13, Rom 12:2, and 2 Cor 4:16–

5:5.

The conflict between inner and outer, earthly and heavenly, and true versus false

seeing continues in 5:1–5 where the dominant imagery becomes that of an earthly versus

a heavenly body. Paul writes:

For we know that even if our earthly house is a tent being destroyed, we have a
house from God, a home not made with human hands, eternal in the heavens.
And so we groan because of this, longing to put on our heavenly home, if also
having taken off [our earthly body] we are not found naked. And so while being
in the tent we groan as we bear the weight, because we do not wish to be
unclothed but further clothed, so that what is mortal shall be swallowed up by life.
And the one who prepares us for this very thing is God, the one who gives us the
down-payment of the pneu~ma.
Here the earthly house is liable to destruction but to be replaced by a perfect and eternal

body awaiting the true Christ-follower at the parousia.32 Lest the earthly and heavenly

seem very removed, the text alludes to a mediating role for the pneu~ma that serves as a

guarantee. The imagery of nakedness and clothing here plays on a Platonic myth that has

souls standing naked before the gods, unadorned by the deceptive beauty of the body and

so showing their deep faults and wickedness. This discussion of judgment and nakedness

appears in Plato’s Gorgias 532a–524a which explains how the gods can better see a

person’s wickedness when they behold the soul after death, stripped of body and full of

32
Compare Opif. 137 where God fashions Adam out of the best earth to serve as an oikos or a sacred shrine
(oi]koj ga/r tij new/j i9ero\j e0ktektai/neto yuxh~j logikh~j) “which man was to carry like a holy image, of
all images the most Godlike.”

22
sores and scars.33 On these terms, it makes sense that nakedness in Paul’s text would

allude to a bad outcome at the judgment. This reading is encouraged by the ways that

Plutarch (Consolatio ad Apoll. 121a–c) and Philo develop this myth of judgment.

Though Plutarch reproduces the myth at length, Philo simply uses the image of the naked

soul full of scars and ugliness to excoriate those who try to disguise their true self. He

warns against sophistic trickery and pretensions to virtue in name only:

The vindicators will come strong and bold, inspired with zeal for virtue. They
will strip off all this complication of wraps and bandages which the perverted art
of the talkers has put together, and beholding the soul naked in her very self they
will know the secrets hidden from sight in the recesses of her nature; and then
exposing to every eye in clear sunlight her shame and all her disgraces they will
point the contrast between her real character, so hideous, so despicable, and the
spurious comeliness which disguised in her wrappings she counterfeited. (Mut.
199)

Like Plato, Plutarch, and Philo, Paul’s comment, “not that we may be found naked,” uses

the image of souls unclothed or naked to allude to the heavenly judgment resulting in

(one presumes) punishment and wrath. This image also introduces an equivocation about

the coming judgment that underscores the moralizing in 5:6–10. So while verses 4:16–18

are quite positive about the heavenly future, 5:1–5 uses the spectre of the naked soul to

introduce an element of doubt about how things will go at the judgment, and this doubt in

turn sets up Paul’s moralizing in verses 5:6–10. So he writes in 5:6: “So then being

always of good courage and knowing that when we are at home in the body we are not at

home with the Lord, since we conduct ourselves on the basis of faith, not on the basis of

the visible form.” This exhortation connects easily from the previous discussion about

the possibility of getting or not getting a true heavenly body (being found naked or being

re-clothed), since the basis for judgment is precisely what the embodied soul has

33
Cf. Plato, Crat. 403b. Aune (“Human Nature and Ethics,” 302) suggests these connections but does not
develop them.

23
accomplished during life. This also re-introduces body/soul alienation with the imagery

of being at home in the body versus at home with God, again evoking the contrast

between the visible form of the world and something else (here faith) and connecting all

of this to the current situation of the Christ-follower. The logic is that God’s reward of

eternal life and heavenly transformation will come only in response to the correct

disposition of the soul towards God and this turns out to be the same thing as behaving

appropriately while embodied. This basic exhortation is repeated again in verse 10: “For

we all must show ourselves before the tribunal of Christ so that each person may receive

back corresponding to what they have done in the body, whether good or bad.” On these

terms, the discussion drives at a series of exhortations about good behavior and obedience

to God in the present, so as to assure a positive judgment in the future.

Finally, it is important to note that Paul’s text makes the inner person the site of

faithfulness, obedience, and submission to God. 2 Cor 4:16–18 refers to an inner person

and attributes it a special way of perceiving, but thought the text implies that the mind

has, or should have, such capacities, it also links this inexorably to God’s outpouring of

the pneu~ma which somehow allows for true knowledge, faithfulness, and obedience.

Like writers such as Philo and Wisdom who often connect true reason and knowledge

with reverence and obedience towards God and God’s law, Paul celebrates the capacities

of reason or mind but also insists that true understanding should result in obedience to

God. As a result, Paul tends to imagine the Christ-follower as dependent on God and

therefore quite passive before God and his servant, Paul. From this perspective, it makes

sense that 2 Cor 4:16–5:5 appears within a discussion and defense of Paul’s authority as

an apostle, since the text labors to create a highly intimate and mysterious inner conflict

24
that the Christ follower is helpless to resolve. Though a long tradition of scholars have

found a uniquely Pauline tension between the “already” and the “not yet,” taking Platonic

premises more seriously allows for a contextual and historical explanation for the way

that Paul understands the present and future in relation to body and soul.34 The “already”

versus “not yet” tension appears not as a unique result of Paul’s eschatology, but as a

product of his creative appropriation of Platonism and the relative ease with which he

synthesizes it with his convictions about the future judgment and transformation of the

person into something better. However original and creative Paul’s formulation may be,

the uniqueness of this seeming tension or contradiction disappears when understood in

light of Platonic traditions that makes such conflict normative for the embodied soul.

Conclusions

The approach taken here suggests some persistent problems with the ways that

Hellenism and Judaism have been understood as informing Paul’s thought. For instance,

rather than viewing Hellenistic traditions as part of a vaguely defined cultural overlay on

Paul’s Jewish apocalypticism, the approach taken here considers Paul as having a

particular repertoire of interests and skills and sets out to explain one area of that

repertoire and its results for his thinking about anthropology. Instead of imagining

conflict between fundamentally different cultures understood as hypostatic realities, this

study suggests a view of Paul as a producer of a highly creative synthesis of multiple

Reed College 4/29/08 4:54 PM
Deleted: Commentary
Reed College 5/31/08 3:00 PM
Formatted: Font:10 pt
34
On the already/not yet or indicative/imperative in Paul’s thought, see e.g. Aune, “Human Nature and
Kate Lawn 10/23/07 1:36 PM
Ethics,” 304 and James D. G. Dunn, Commentary on Romans (Dallas: Word, 1988), 1.302–303.
Deleted: .

25
traditions. From this perspective, it is not a vaguely defined Hellenistic culture that sheds

light on Paul’s writings but rather specific philosophical traditions and discourses.

The proceeding discussion has focused on the appropriation of identifiably

Platonic images and premises in Paul’s texts. It has been argued that Rom 7 and 2 Cor 4–

5 develop a picture of the true Christ-follower in ways that are consistent with certain

Platonic ideas, though of course those Platonic premises are synthesized with Paul’s

thinking about the nearness of the parousia and God’s plan to judge and transform human

beings. I have here focused on Platonic images of judgment, but it is just as important to

consider Paul’s rich and creative synthesis as involving other traditions and discourses

such as those more closely associated with apocalypticism. Nevertheless, Greek

intellectual traditions have much to offer Paul because they are one area where thinkers

engage in theorizing about exactly what the human being is and how it relates to the rest

of the cosmos, including but not limited to other human beings, societies, governments,

matter, the elements, the heavens, first causes, and divine and semi-divine beings.

Further consideration of the ways that certain intellectuals synthesize multiple traditions

may shed light on their distinctive interests and skills generally and Paul’s in particular.

26