Tag Archives: 1st Corinthians

One Flesh=Made Holy….

Posted on by
4
Left: St. Mary of Egypt received Holy Communion when she was baptized as an adult in Jerusalem and then again from the priest-monk Zosimas in the desert after 47 years of ascetic practice as a hermit. Right: priest pours water into the chalice at the Offertory of the Eucharist.

For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. (1 Cor. 7:14)

St. Paul has already discussed how a man and woman become one flesh when they have a sexual relationship, no matter how brief that relationship might be. Now he points out that because a husband and wife become one flesh, the unbelieving spouse shares in the holiness of the believing spouse.

Among the Eastern Christians, the spouse of the priest shares in her husband’s priestly ministry, to some extent. She is given a special title of respect, usually the feminine form of whatever title her husband has: presbyter/presbytera, papa(batushka)/mama (matushka), preot (priest)/preoteasa. She and the priest are one flesh and share a common relationship to the parish.

In the reception of Holy Communion, each Christian becomes one flesh with Christ and with other believers who partake. This is why the use of one loaf and one cup are so important in the celebration of the Eucharist. We all receive the same Holy Gifts and share a common life as a result.

Because we share a common life, we contribute to each other’s salvation and sanctification. The holiness of one member supports and sustains the holiness of the others; the sin of one member pulls down the others as well. “Save yourself and you will save 1,000 people around you,” said St. Seraphim of Sarov. The salvation of one radiates out to touch everyone in the vicinity–and beyond!–just a ripples from a stone thrown into a pond radiate out across the surface of the water.

“Husband and wife are one in the same way that wine and water are one when they are mixed together,” wrote the 2nd century Bible scholar Origen. The wine and water mixed in the chalice are frequently seen as an allusion to the union of divinity and humanity in Christ, as well as the union of human spouses or members of the same congregation. It is in the Paschal cup of blessing that we find our communion with God and each other.

Conjugal Debts

Posted on by
Reply
The Church, the Bride of Christ, is born from his side when the blood and water pour forth from the lance-wound in his side, just as Eve was born from the side of Adam. As bride and groom, the Church and Christ can be said to owe each other a “conjugal debt” that is “paid” in the Eucharist. “Do you understand, then, how Christ has united his bride to himself and what food he gives us all to eat? By one and the same food we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with his own blood those to whom he himself has given life.” (St. John Chrysostom)

Let a man give to his wife what he owes her; similarly, a wife to her husband. A wife does not have authority over her body, her husband does; likewise, a husband does not have authority over his own body, his wife does. Do not deprive one another …. (1 Cor. 7:4-5)

Evidently the Corinthians had written a series of questions to St. Paul, some of them about marriage. In response, St. Paul writes a short treatise On Marriage in chapter 7 of First Corinthians. It was common for philosophers and later Christian theologians to write essays about the good and bad qualities of marriage; St. Augustine wrote an especially famous essay On the Good [Aspects] of Marriage.

Jewish tracts about marriage and pagan philosophers writing about marriage agree about the power of sexuality. St. Paul concurs with these ideas. The sexual relationship is at the heart of the marital relationship and the sexual availability each spouse owes the other came to be known as the “conjugal debt.” St. Paul writes that the spouses could agree to deny each other for short periods, so as to be better able to focus on prayer, but should never stay away from each other for long.

What is a “short” period? What is a “long” time? Jewish practice expected a married couple to abstain for one or two weeks each month because of the wife’s menstrual cycle. Soldiers and priests were expected to abstain during their times of active service–partly because they weren’t at home. Scholars of the Torah could abstain for a month but not longer; this meant they could not go away to distant libraries for months at a time. Ordinary workmen were not allowed to abstain for more than a week; this meant they had to come home every week if they had a job that required them to live away from home.

Early Christians expected that married couples who were fasting would also abstain from sexual activity; some manuscripts of First Corinthians read that couples should only abstain in order to engage in “prayer and fasting.” There were two fasting days each week and anyone receiving Holy Communion was expected to fast the night before as well. Converts preparing for baptism were expected to fast for three days. (This pre-baptismal fast is what became Holy Week and then Lent.)

St. Paul was not married. It was unusual for a Jewish man to not be married so a few people think he might have been a widower without children. Whether he had been married as a younger man or not, he urged the Corinthians to remain as they were when they converted: married or single or widowed. Stability of life–itself an important monastic virtue in the 6th century–was important to St. Paul. Such stability involved a stable homelife which included a stable reliance on the “payment” of the “conjugal debt.”

Glorify God in Your Body

Posted on by
2
Orthodox believers stand in line to kiss the relic, the right hand of St. John the Baptist, which was brought to Russia from Montenegro, in Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.

Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have received from God, dwelling within you, and that you are not your own? You have been bought and paid for. Therefore glorify God in your body. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

“Don’t you know?” St. Paul asks the Christians in Corinth. “Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,” he tells them. He is picking up on what he has just told them about taking each other to court. “What you are doing is inappropriate for anyone who has been washed-illuminated-sanctified in the Name of Christ and by the Spirit of God.”

“Illumination” or “enlightenment” was an early name for baptism. Plunging into the baptismal water, the new Christian is enlightened by the light of Christ, the light that filled the darkness of Hell and destroyed the realms of darkness and death. The new Christian is also sanctified, anointed by the Holy Spirit. Literally anointed. Not just metaphorically. The newly baptized was liberally anointed with chrism, the perfumed and sanctified oil that conferred the gift of the Holy Spirit. This sanctifying oil glistened in the candlelight by which those present at the baptism could see.

The body of the new Christian belongs to God as much as the new Christian’s soul does. Baptism is not just a spiritual experience. It is a physical experience that changes a person’s physical situation as much as it changes a person’s spiritual situation. Because a person’s body is washed and anointed, that body becomes a holy thing to be treated with respect, i.e. venerated and honored. Because a body is a holy thing, to be treated with respect and honor, it is inappropriate to treat the body in any disrespectful way. Some of those inappropriate, disrespectful ways involve sex but there are other inappropriate, disrespectful behaviors that do not involve sex.

Material things–including the bodies of the baptized but any material thing–can communicate the presence and power of God. Material things can communicate the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. One of the respectful, honorable ways we treat these sanctified material things is to kiss them.

Even after the baptized person dies, the body is still a holy thing and the remains–i.e. the relics–of the person are venerated and honored. The relics of the baptized dead are kissed and honored with incense, whether the person was a heroic saint or not. The baptized dead are saints by virtue of their baptism and their relics are treated accordingly.

Treating a person in a respectful manner during a sexual encounter goes hand-in-hand with venerating the relics of the saints. Bodies are important. They are holy. They are washed-illuminated-sanctified. Far from being irrelevant to ultimate salvation, the body is the means whereby God is glorified.