If Anyone Hungers . . .

: An Integrated
Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734*
SUZANNE WATTS HENDERSON
Dept of Religion, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA
Based on an integrated reading of the social and sacramental dimensions of 1 Cor
11.1734, this study suggests that, rather than denoting the private homes of the
wealthy, Pauls use of oi xi o/oi xo (11.22, 34) refers to the domain of the Corinthian
churchs gathering. As a result, his exhortation in these verses entails not a tacit
endorsement of stratified resources but a concerted argument for the feeding
of the hungry in the communitys shared meal (ori avov), a meal he hopes will imi-
tate Jesus pattern of self-sacrifice and so will become a meal that is of the Lord
(xupioxo v ori avov).
Introduction
When Paul turns to address the Corinthian churchs gathering practices in
1 Cor 11, his censure is unmistakable: But this I instruct, not praising you, for it is
not for the better but for the worse that you gather (1 Cor 11.17).
1
The ensuing pas-
sage first exposes the problem of a stratified meal, next presents a corrective
appeal to the Lords Supper tradition, and then considers the real-life implica-
tions of the Corinthians table practices. But Pauls sustained argument raises a
compelling question: if he so vehemently objects to the communitys divisive
eating habits (twice he emphasizes his lack of praise for them in this matter) and
so boldly pronounced judgment upon them (judgment even unto death), why
would he temper his rebuke by sanctioning the churchs wealthier members
eating (and drinking) at home?
I
* This article is an expanded version of my paper given in the Pauline Epistles section of the
annual SBL meeting in Denver, Colorado, in November 2001. My deep thanks to Richard
Hays, Joel Marcus, and Rick Stone for their careful reading and critical responses. While any
merits of my exegesis reflect their influence, the flaws herein are mine alone.
1 This translation follows Gordon D. Fees choice of aopoyyr m as the main verb in a verse
marked by text-critical problems (The First Epistle to the Corinthians [NICNT; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1987] 5345 n.15). While the issue is relatively minor for the understanding of the
passage, this translation lends weight to the ensuing instructions Paul so forcibly offers.
New Test. Stud. , pp. . Printed in the United Kingdom Cambridge University Press
This study will propose that, instead of referring to the private homes of the
wealthy, the occurrences of oi xi o/oi xo (11.22, 34) denote the gathering places of
the Corinthian church, so that Paul in the one instance utters a reminder, For do
you not have houses [expressly] for eating and drinking [together]? (11.22) and in
the other closes the discussion by urging, if anyone hungers [when you gather],
let that one eat in the house [church], lest you gather in judgment (11.34). Taken
together, these verses underscore rather than undermine the significance of the
Corinthians shared meal (ori avov), a meal which Paul would have conform to
Jesus model of self-sacrifice to become a meal that is of the Lord (xupioxo v
ori avov).
Commentators considering both 11.22 and 11.34 have maintained, often with a
touch of embarrassment, that these verses constitute the necessary escape clause
of an at-home eating option for the hungering haves. Hans Conzelmann, for
example, ascribes the concession to Pauls desire to separate the sacrament from
satisfaction of hunger.
2
Yet in considering whether such a move promotes fur-
ther splitting up, he depends on the following reconstruction: Apparently we
must make ourselves a realistic picture of the situation: a man who has worked all
day comes hungry to the meeting . . . and is he then to wait . . . until everyone has
arrived?
3
Similarly, Gordon Fee finds in both verses a summons to eat your pri-
vate meals at home.
4
Troels Engberg-Pedersen elaborates this view more fully:
The implication is that there may not in fact be enough food (and drink) present
at the Eucharist to satisfy the rich peoples appetite when the food is divided
equally and so they may make up at home for any deficiencies that they may
feel.
5
Two critical assumptions undergird these and other concessional readings
and will provide a starting point for our study of 1 Cor 11.22 and 34. First, scholars
have often held the view that Paul principally aims in 1 Cor 11.1734 to rehabilitate
the Corinthians Eucharistic celebration which has been corrupted by a profane
common meal. To purify the sacrament, in this understanding, Paul must banish
from the gathering any hint of physical hunger, relegating such a concern to the
realm of the private home. Second, fundamental to any concessional reading is
the notion that when Paul speaks of oi xi o/oi xo, he advocates a clear distinction
196 suznNNr wn11s nrNnrnsoN
2 Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle (Hermeneia;
Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 195.
3 Ibid., 203. Similarly, Gnther Bornkamm ascribes to Paul an intention to ward off the mis-
representation of the cultic meal as a profane meal to satisfy hunger (Early Christian
Experience [London: SCM, 1969] 154).
4 Fee, First Epistle, 569.
5 T. Engberg-Pedersen, Proclaiming the Lords Death: 1 Corinthians 11.1734 and the Forms of
Pauls Theological Argument, Pauline Theology Volume II: 1 & 2 Corinthians (ed. David M.
Hay; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 111.
between what happens in the church members private residences on the one
hand and the practices of the gathered community on the other. Our argument
will reconsider each of these implicit claims of distinct spheres of Christian prac-
tice and suggest instead a more integrated, ecclesiocentric reading of 1 Cor 11.22
and 11.34.
Pauls driving concern: social or sacramental?
What is the relationship between the sacramental and real meal issues in
this passage? Among modern scholars, Johannes Weiss can be credited with set-
ting the terms of this exegetical conversation. He observes that Pauls discussion
here is dominated by two different tendencies: vv. 2022, 3334 by the social, and
vv. 2332 by the sacramental, and finds it not entirely manifest how far the
appeal to the Lords sayings and the exposition of the significance of the cel-
ebration are to serve the purpose of combatting Corinthian immorality.
6
If subsequent studies have answered Weisss implicit challenge to discern a
link between Pauls two concerns, they have also emphasized the sacramental
dimension in a way that subtly inverts Weisss question. Rather than asking how
the sayings might address immoral practices, most scholars have asked how the
immoral practices affect the communitys Eucharistic celebration. C. K. Barrett,
for instance, detects a corrupting influence, as the bad state of affairs in the
common meal make the entire Lords Supper illusory.
7
In her study of 1 Cor 11.26,
Beverly Gaventa reflects a similar perspective: The question is whether the cel-
ebration actually proclaims the death of the Lord or whether it proclaims simply
the standards and values of the larger society.
8
And Engberg-Pederson summa-
rizes Pauls argument this way: if you do not behave in the way that goes with
being in Christ while participating in the ritual that defines Christian existence,
then you stop being in Christ.
9
In forging a closer connection between the pass-
ages sacred and social elements, these studies have taken quite seriously the
possibility that the issue of divisions (oi ooto) raised in 11.18 and elaborated in
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 197
6 Johannes Weiss, Earliest Christianity: A History of the Period A.D. 30150 (2 vols; New York:
Harper & Row, 1959) 2.8489.
7 C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Harper & Row,
1968) 169.
8 Beverly Roberts Gaventa, You Proclaim the Lords Death: 1 Corinthians 11.26 and Pauls
Understanding of Worship, Review and Expositor 80 (1983) 385; also A. Andrew Das, 1
Corinthians 11.1734 Revisited, CTQ 62 (1998) 206: By enjoying their own meal the rich at
Corinth had effectively failed to recognize the presence of Christ in the Sacrament (verses 20,
2332), as well as what that Sacrament was intended to effect and symbolize, the churchs
unity (verses 1722, 3334).
9 Engberg-Pederson, Proclaiming the Lords Death, 124. The fact that he does not apply this
insight to v. 34a neither disclaims its validity nor requires a transitional reading of it.
11.202 directly relates to the theologically unworthy partaking of the bread and
cup of the Lord (11.27). A growing consensus of scholarship finds that proper
observance of the Eucharist requires the communitys social cohesion. Yet those
who emphasize Pauls concern for sanctified sacrament lose the force of Weisss
undeveloped hunch that Paul appeals to the Last Supper tradition in service of his
main concern, combatting Corinthian immorality. Let us now explore several
rhetorical features of 1 Cor 11.1734 that highlight Pauls dominant interest not in
proper liturgical practice or ritual act per se but in the divisions and their real-
life implications that occur when the community gathers for a common meal.
To begin with, scholars generally concur that the verb ouvr pro0oi governs
the passage both through its fivefold repetition (vv. 17, 18, 20, 33, 34) and through
the framing inclusio of vv. 17 and 34. Moreover, two of these five instances indicate
that the explicit purpose for gathering is to eat (vv. 20, 33). At stake is the very
nature of the church community, whose coming together to eat rv rxxpoio is of
utmost importance for Paul. Further, echoing a concern he had raised near the
letters outset (1.10), Paul mentions the oi ooto (11.18) that have been reported to
him. In ch. 11, as in the letter as a whole, Pauls first impulse here is not towards
liturgical propriety but towards the integrity, the wholeness, of the community.
10
As the argument unfolds, we find a crescendo of increasingly graphic depic-
tions of the communitys behaviour. First comes a stinging indictment: When
you gather, it is not to eat a supper of the Lord (11.20, emphasis added). Because
the phrase xupioxo v ori avov later became an official designation for the sacra-
mental meal, readers of this verse often assume it expresses Pauls driving interest
in the proper celebration of the Lords Supper. But three features of the phrases
occurrence here caution the reader against assuming too fixed a liturgical under-
standing of the phrase xupioxo v ori avov. First, while synoptic accounts of the
Last Supper (Matt 26.2630; Mark 14.226; Luke 22.1423) imply the nascent
churchs observance of a shared memorial meal, the phrase xupioxo v ori avov
appears neither in those accounts nor elsewhere in the entire NT corpus.
Especially in contrast with the NTs frequent allusion to baptism, the striking
paucity of Lords Supper language calls for a guarded understanding of the
phrase.
11
Second, we should note that, as it does occur in this passage, the phrase
198 suznNNr wn11s nrNnrnsoN
10 It is interesting to note that, in the wisdom of God, it is the message of the cross (a fractured
symbol in the eyes of the world) that promises the wholeness towards which Paul presses.
For a thorough exposition of Pauls first letter to the Corinthians as a calculated effort
towards reconciliation within the community, see Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the
Rhetoric of Reconciliation (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993).
11 Fee dismisses out of hand C. K. Barretts warning that we should not presume liturgical
usage, claiming the very fact of [the words] being quoted in this fashion and their being
remembered in the church in two clear traditions suggests that they had probably already
come to have liturgical usage (Fee, First Epistle, 549 n.21). While it seems likely that the
lacks the definite article and so can aptly be translated as a meal of the Lord or
even a Lord-like meal. Third, the phrase itself occurs in the portion of our pass-
age addressing not the sacramental but the social dimensions of the Corinthians
shared meal, and there Paul employs it to portray just what kind of meal they do
not currently practise.
If the Corinthians meal is not a xupioxo v ori avov, what kind of ori avov is it?
Paul does not mince words as he elaborates his critique for the ensuing verse:
For (explanatory yo p) each one eats his/her own supper in the meal, and while
one hungers, another gets drunk (11.21). A close reading of this verse exposes the
fault lines of the communitys meal practices that lie at the heart of Pauls con-
cern in the passage as a whole. To begin with, Gerd Theissen has argued that the
juxtaposed modifiers xupioxo v and i oiov emphasize a sharp contrast between a
meal that is appropriately the Lords and a meal that is inappropriately ones
own. Further, he finds that not only were the Corinthians eating their own food,
but they were also eating it on their own.
12
Thus, in both ownership and con-
sumption, the phrase r xooto yo p to i oiov ori avov exposes the grounds on
which this is not a supper of the Lord.
13
Moreover, in Pauls estimation these
habits lead to a radically polarized community: while one hungers, another gets
drunk (11.21). Considering the rhetorical dominance of ouvr pro0oi in the pass-
age, such a splintering of the community defies the very nature of the gathered
church by running counter to the more egalitarian ethos of Pauline
Christianity.
14
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 199
memorial meal was shared in conjunction with worship, we should bear in mind at least the
possibility that liturgical usage in nascent Christian gatherings would have been far more
fluid and far less liturgical than the word connotes for the modern mind.
12 Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1982) 148.
13 Many scholars have found in the verb apooo vriv another facet of the Corinthians
supper not being of the Lord. For instance, Peter Lampe, The Eucharist: Identifying with
Christ on the Cross, Interpretation 48 (1994), suggests a temporal distinction between the
haves and have nots: During the dinner [the host along with a first round of guests]
reclined at the so-called First Tables, and several courses were served. Afterwards a sym-
posium at Second Tables [with other guests added to the company] might take place (38).
While such a practice helps provide a social context for Pauls discussion, its correlation to
the particulars of the Corinthian church may be strained by the fact that, in Lampes
research, there is no indication of those at the Second Tables going hungry. Alternatively,
Das maintains that the word is often used without any temporal sense at all (1 Corinthians
11.1734, 190). The sparing use of the verb apooo vriv in the NT (only here and in Gal 6.1
and Mark 14.8, and with differing nuances in each instance), along with its wide semantic
range in extrabiblical literature, lead us to look to the verses other, more explicit, elements
for reliable clues as to the nature of the gathering problem.
14 James D. G. Dunn, 1 Corinthians (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995) 79.
It is worth noting at this point that Pauls critique of the communitys meal
habits is not unique to the Greco-Roman world. While meal practices common in
first-century Corinth (and elucidated by Theissen, Murphy-OConnor, Lampe,
and others) reinforced social division between haves and have nots, not every-
one endorsed that division. Theissen cites both Eratostheness critique of a feast
in which each person partakes privately of the drink provided for all (FGH 241,
fgm. 16) and Platos phrase friends have all things in common (Phaedrus, 279c) to
show that it would fit with good Greek tradition to put the idea of community at
the head of the list of debatable issues.
15
Roman literature echoes at times this
disdain for the stratification of food at banquets both from below (the perspec-
tive of the have nots is represented by Martial and Juvenal) and from above (as
Pliny the Younger asserts that the rich should limit their intake to what is available
to the have nots).
Against the backdrop of common critique, though, Pauls rhetorical strategy
stands out in sharp relief in both form and content.
16
While Greco-Roman rheto-
ric appeals to reasonableness and the common good, Paul grounds his rebuke in
a narrative tradition linked to the Lord, a tradition anchored in history and
referred back to a fixed point in the recent, not to say most recent, past.
17
In this
passage, then, the Jesus tradition provides a historically grounded paradigm for
transforming the communitys eating and drinking according to the logic of Jesus
own self-sacrifice.
But how does the text itself convey that function for the Jesus sayings? Rather
than separating the tradition from its framework, we shall briefly observe how
Pauls handling of the tradition complements the rhetorical moves found within
the narrative itself.
18
To begin with, appropriating transmission-of-tradition lan-
guage found in Jewish and Hellenistic literature,
19
Paul adeptly weaves the verbs
200 suznNNr wn11s nrNnrnsoN
15 Theissen, Social Setting, 14950.
16 Theissen writes: Pauls intentions in no way (or at best only marginally) lay in regulating
social conflicts. His intentions are found at another level. . . . The social realities are inter-
preted, intensified, transcended (ibid., 165).
17 Hans-Josef Klauck, The Lords Supper and the Lords Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1
Corinthians 11.23b25, One Loaf, One Cup: Ecumenical Studies of 1 Cor 11 and Other Eucharistic
Texts (NewGospel Studies 6; ed. Ben F. Meyer; Macon, GA: Mercer University, 1993) 64.
18 Gaventa rightly notes that in his citation of the Last Supper tradition, Paul follows a typical
pattern in which the theological warrants are placed at the center of the consideration of a
practical issue (You Proclaim, 384).
19 For Jewish instances of this formula, see, e.g., Abot 1.1, where the Torah is transmitted from
Moses on Sinai on down to the men of the great synagogue, and Josephus, Ant. 13.297,
which describes the handing down of the Pharisees oral Torah. In Greco-Roman literature,
Klauck cites Plato, Plutarch, and Cicero, whose use of the words might include, among other
things, the establishment of a cult, instruction in the myth of the mysteries, and the allotting
of degrees of initiation (Lords Supper, 62). The words appearance together in the LXX
provides an interesting convergence of these backgrounds (Wisd 14.15).
(aopo)apooo vriv and (aopo)oioo voi into the beginning of the tradition itself
in 23b:
Eym yo p o ao tou xupi ou,
o xoi u i v,
o ti o xu pio Ipoou r v tp vuxti p
o ptov
As Richard Hays argues, Pauls use of aoproi orto refers not to the actions of Judas
Iscariot but rather to Jesus act of obedience to the divine will . . . and at the same
time as Gods ownact for the salvationof the world.
20
Eventhis seamless introduc-
tion, then, reflects the logic of the cross a logic of receiving and handing over
which Paul would have reshape the Corinthians handling of their food at table.
Pauls reworking of the traditional material itself develops this dynamic of
(aopo)apooo vriv and (aopo)oioo voi in several ways. In distinction from the
closely related Lukan account, for instance, Paul opts for a more awkward word
order in his placement of the possessive pronoun ou in parallel construction
with the phrase u ar p u m v: This of me is the body, the one for you (11.24).
21
The
narrative effect is to stress the self-giving, sacrificial action on the part of Jesus, not
as an empty gesture but as an act performed precisely for the benefit of others.
22
Such a sacrificial emphasis grows more explicit in the following verse, where
Jesus words present the cup as the new covenant in my blood (11.25). In the
blood of Jesus, that covenant is ratified from the least of them to the greatest (Jer
31.34), thus binding the covenant people to God and to one another. As Victor
Furnish notes, in the tradition as Paul conveys it here, the bread and the cup rep-
resent the Lords giving of himself .
23
That this story of the Last Supper is not just a noble act but an example the
Corinthians are called to imitate becomes more evident with Jesus charge,
Do this (tou to aoiri tr) as my remembrance (11.24, 25). Many have speculated
about the antecedent of tou to, which Fee finds to include the range of activities
associated with the sacramental meal: blessing, breaking, distributing, and
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 201
20 Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians (Interpretation; Louisville: John Knox, 1997) 198.
21 This phrase itself connotes sacrifice in its connection with Isa 53. Thus, Otfried Hofius, The
Lords Supper and the Lords Supper Tradition: Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11.23b25, One
Loaf, One Cup, 98: the prepositional attributive to u ar p u m v specifies Jesus self-surrender
unto death as expiatory and reconciliatory event. Also, Fee, First Epistle, 551, writes: this is
almost certainly a prophetic symbolic action, by which he anticipated his death and inter-
preted it in light of Isa 53 as in behalf of others.
22 While Conzelmann understands that the fruit of this sacrifice is the removal of the guilt of
sin (1 Corinthians, 198) through either atoning or vicarious sacrifice, the sacrifice Paul would
have the Corinthians practise is, in general terms, a life-giving, community-building sacri-
fice.
23 Victor Paul Furnish, The Theology of the First Letter to the Corinthians (New York: Cambridge
University, 1999) 82.
eating.
24
In a similar vein, Fritz Chenderlin finds it refers both to the elements and
whatever else was done or said in accompaniment.
25
But both readings are
grounded in a highly liturgical understanding of the passage. The text itself offers
still another possible, and even simpler, reference for the tou to of do this. Since
the repetition of tou to provides a rhetorical link between Jesus bestowal (this of
me . . . for you) and the ensuing command (do this . . .), we may read the phrase
in this way: Do this, that is, give yourselves (and your resources) up for others, just
as I am doing for you. . . .
Finally, Pauls own interpretive spin (11.26) underscores and appropriates what
has been central to the tradition itself as it joins Jesus self-sacrifice (renarrated in
vv. 235) to the Corinthians own proclamation (quite unlike the behaviour
expressed in vv. 1722): For (yo p) as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup
[inthe self-givingmanner I have displayed], the deathof the Lord[his paradigmatic
self-giving] you proclaimuntil he comes. By placing the object to v 0o votov in its
prominent position in the verse, Paul underscores the dominant theme of a true
xupioxo v ori avov.
26
For Paul, the death of the Lord has occurred not in and of
itself, but on behalf of others.
27
And because baptized believers participate in that
death (Rom6.3), its active proclamationbecomes the defining characteristic of the
community even, or perhaps especially, when they gather at table.
28
As Gaventa
puts it, To proclaimthe death of the Lord is, to say the least, not to proclaimones
own rights or prerogatives.
29
To say slightly more, it is actively to give up those
rights for the sake of the other (cf. 1 Cor 9.12, 19; 10.234; 14.1819), thus announcing
the eschatological reversal of values that will come to fruition when he comes.
To this point, we have identified both Pauls driving concern about the frac-
tured community at table and his narrative remedy in the Last Supper material.
30
202 suznNNr wn11s nrNnrnsoN
24 Fee, First Epistle, 551 n.38. Fee does not explain why he includes in this list the act of distri-
buting, which, as we have discussed, does not appear in the text itself.
25 Fritz Chenderlin, Do This As My Memorial: The Semantic and Conceptual Background and
Value of in 1 Cor 11.2425 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1982) 226.
26 Cf. Gaventa, You Proclaim, 380: We may suspect, therefore, that the phrase receives
special stress, although it would be a mistake to lean heavily on this change from normal
word order.
27 Cf., e.g., various Pauline expressions of Christs death: u ar p tm v o optim v p m v (1 Cor 15.3);
u ar p o orm v (Rom 5.6); u ar p p m v (Rom 5.8).
28 Gaventa has convincingly rejected the long-held view that the verb xotoyyr riv must
accompany verbal proclamation; [n]ot only is it possible lexicographically that Paul under-
stands the Supper itself as an act of proclamation, but the context and Pauls comments
elsewhere make this the more compelling interpretation (You Proclaim, 383).
29 Ibid., 384.
30 Thus the view here is close to that of Dunn who claims that the picture that emerges of the
typical shared meal and sacrament becomes strikingly everyday, part of and expressive of
their common life (1 Corinthians, 77). I would simply elide the meal/sacrament distinction
Dunn preserves.
Put simply, Paul first rebukes the community for a meal that is not Christ-like and
then offers an authoritative paradigm from the Jesus tradition to reshape their
shared meal into a gathering for the better. Only enacted in light of the cross can
the Corinthians ori avov be worthy of the designation xupioxov ori avov; thus
the theological and social dimensions cohere precisely when the communitys
gathering at table genuinely proclaims the death of the Lord. In the words of John
Chrysostom, Paul reminds us that the Master gave up everything, including him-
self, for us, whereas we are reluctant even to share a little food with our fellow
believers.
31
Thus we have offered a tenable answer to Weiss: Paul marshals the
Lords sayings to offer a narrative model for the communitys self-giving, instead
of self-serving, table practices.
A community that eats and drinks together
We have demonstrated that Pauls concern is not so much correct liturgi-
cal observance per se as it is the real-life proclamation, through a common meal,
of Jesus death as the scandalous event in which all values and expectations are
overturned
32
values and expectations that now govern table fellowship when
the community gathers. Yet such an integrated reading raises the stakes for the
interpretation of two verses traditionally understood to offer tacit endorsement
for stratified resource allocation outside the gathered community. When Paul
speaks of houses for eating and drinking (1 Cor 11.22) and urges the one hunger-
ing to eat at home (11.34), does he not contradict the passages coherent logic of
self-sacrifice for the sake of others? In other words, if Pauls driving concern is the
communitys imitation of Jesus self-giving table act, it becomes increasingly
problematic to suggest that he would deliberately separate the social issue of
real-life hunger from a sacramental meal proclaiming the Lords death.
If the evidence within the passage itself compels us to consider possible
alternatives to concessional readings of 11.22 and 11.34, external evidence paves the
way for readings that serve Pauls cross-centred purposes for the communitys
gathering at table. The common semantic ground of the verses mention of
oi xi o/oi xo will provide a helpful starting point for this line of inquiry, which will
culminate with closer scrutiny of each verse in its own right.
While the Greek language had originally conferred on the word oi xi o a rather
narrow meaning designating ones residence,
33
by the time of Pauls writing the
term had assumed the broader semantic range of its cognate oi xo, which
included both literal and figurative senses.
34
While the LXX certainly favours oi xo
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 203
31 John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 27.5.
32 Gaventa, You Proclaim, 380.
33 Cf. Xenophon, Oec. 1.5 and Herodotus 7.224.
34 TDNT 5.11934.
as a lexical equivalent for tyb,
35
its translators do at times interchange oi xi o with
oi xo.
36
For instance, Gen 24.2 calls Abrahams servant the oldest of his house
(oi xi o), referring not just to the physical structure but to the household, more
broadly understood. Paul similarly reflects the words synonymous use when he
first designates Stephanass household as to v Etrovo oixov (1 Cor 1.16) and later
calls it tp v oi xi ov Etrovo (1 Cor 16.15).
Our case for an ecclesiocentric understanding of oi xi o/oi xo language in 1
Cor 11 gains further support from the LXXs affinity for the notion of house both
as a physical locus (the temple as house of God, e.g. 2 Sam 12.20) and as a com-
munity (the house of Israel, e.g. Exod 16.31). Furthermore, 1 Enoch 53.6 offers this
apocalyptic claim: Then will the righteous and elect cause to appear the house of
[Gods] congregation. The community thus becomes inextricably linked with the
notion of Gods dwelling place on earth.
Even closer to home, early Christian writings provide clear evidence that the
oi xi o/oi xo provided both a physical locus and a metaphorical expression for
Christian community. For instance, Luke reports in Acts 18.7 that after Jews in
Corinth opposed and reviled the apostles message, Paul departed from where
he was (the synagogue) and went to the house (ri oi xi ov) of a godfearer called
Titius Justus. While the Lukan use of the word describes a physical location and
may not be strictly historical, it seems appropriate to understand the transition
from synagogue-based to house-based preaching as bedrock in Pauls conception
of the oi xi o in the nascent Christian community.
As a side note, we may observe that Philo supplies a helpful foil to the NTs
more communal understanding of house. When he writes, For God wished to
assign to the virtuous man in reward a well-built house finely appointed from
foundation to roof the body is indeed the house (oi xi o) of the soul,
37
Philo
depicts an individualized piety characterized by an intensely personalized image
of the house. By contrast, Mark 3.255 links oi xi o to ooiri o in a compelling
argument against division: neither a kingdom divided nor a house divided against
itself can stand. The collective dimension of both kingdom and house thus
emerge as central in NT writings.
38
Let us turn now to consider 11.22a, which constitutes the first in a series of
acerbic rhetorical questions that drive home Pauls depiction of the communitys
gathering for the worse (11.17). When Paul asks, For is it not that you have houses
for eating and drinking?, the conjunction yo p forcibly links the question to the
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35 See Hatch-Redpath, 97382.
36 TDNT 5.130.
37 Philo, Praem. Poen. 120.
38 2 Cor 5.1ff. appears to provide an exception to this general tendency in its language about a
house not made with hands as a rather Philonic reference to the body.
preceding verse. There, Paul has stridently condemned the root problem of the
supper that is not of the Lord, and he has done so by emphasizing, through third
person singular pronouns, the individual nature of the Corinthian meal as pres-
ently practised: yo p to oriavov apooovri rv tm oyriv, xoi
o r v arivo o or r0u ri. But when in 11.22a Paul shifts to second person plural
address (p yo p oi xi o ou x r rtr . . .), he addresses the r xxpoi o as a gathered
community. The point is this: the problem is emphatically not a matter of per-
sonal prerogative but about the nature of the church as a household of God which
stands or falls together.
Another LXX passage may further elucidate Pauls use of oi xi o. Since the
apostle assumes a prophetic role in this passage, we can surmise that Isaiahs
indictment of stratified wealth stemming from the misuse of houses may well
have provided a framework for Pauls censure of the Corinthians table practices.
For like Paul, the OT prophet freely denounces the isolation (and fractured com-
munity) that results from excessive wealth: Ah, you who join house to house
(oi xi ov apo oi xi ov), who add field to field, until there is room for no one but
you, and you are left to live alone in the midst of your land! (Isa 5.8). At a mini-
mum, Isaiahs prophecy provides a scriptural argument against the isolation that
accompanies private wealth.
Taken together, these observations lead to the following proposed reading:
For is it not that you (pl.) have houses [precisely] for [the communitys] eating
and drinking? Or do you show scorn for the church of God [by not having all eat
and drink] and shame those who dont have [houses of their own for eating and
drinking]?
39
Given the semantic possibility of the noun oi xi o, such a reading
makes sense in at least three respects: first, it retains the passages dominant con-
cern with the communitys gathering (even while it disallows further splintering
of meal practices); second, it bridges the gap between those who have and those
who have not through their common identity as tp r xxpoi o tou 0rou ; and
third, it reflects Pauls sustained concern in this letter for those not having (cf. 1
Cor 1.269).
40
We have finally to consider anew the interpretive possibilities for 1 Cor 11.34,
where Paul concludes his urgent corrective of the Corinthian churchs eating
habits by this exhortation: if someone hungers, let that one eat rv oixm , lest it is
for judgment that you gather (v. 34). We have discussed above the traditional
reading that couches Pauls concession in the claim that the meal the Corinthian
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 205
39 Barrett has recognized the possible rhetorical connection with v. 22a (p yo p ou x r rtr) as
he reads tou p r ovto as possibly, those who do not have houses (Commentary, 263).
40 The use of the plural noun oi xi o appears to point to the existence of more than one house
church in Corinth, a conjecture which seems plausible in light of the architectural findings
of Jerome Murphy-OConnor, Saint Pauls Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington, DE:
Michael Glazier, 1983).
church shares is not about satisfying hunger.
41
But, as we have seen, a more thor-
oughly integrated understanding of the social and sacramental dimensions of the
meal seems appropriate and more exegetically fruitful.
Indeed, closer scrutiny of the passages two concluding verses detects in Pauls
language a coherent and compelling closing argument about what it means for
the Corinthians to gather for the better. Notice, for instance, the two last uses of
the verb ouvr pro0oi which frame our traditionally problematic verse:
Therefore, my brothers [and sisters], when you gather to eat, welcome one
another. If someone hungers, let that one eat in the house, lest it is for judgment
that you gather. Sandwiched between these two references to the communitys
gathering lies a positive exhortation (let the hungry in your midst eat!) that sup-
plies the remedy for Pauls opening critique. If their coming together for the
worse has caused divisions according to food consumption, Paul offers an obvi-
ous solution in which bread is shared with the hungry.
Such a view gains exegetical momentum when we observe that, even in these
closing verses, the very purpose of the communitys gathering is defined by the
verb oyri v. It is not too much to say that eating a real meal is part and parcel
of the Corinthians gathering together: for Paul, and he hopes for this fledgling
community, there is no clear distinction between mere physical hunger and
spiritual hunger. Religious practice concerns real-life existence, and the
common table is one place where these Christians can actively proclaim the
Lords death by imitating its underlying self-giving pattern. Further, whereas the
verse previously joining the verbs ouvr pro0oi and oyri v (11.20) has provided
Pauls diagnosis of the detrimental gathering, 11.34 transforms the gathering to
eat in a remedy that makes good pastoral sense.
Another frequently overlooked rhetorical link is the recurrence of the verb
arivo in this passage. Previously, Paul has exposed the communitys gathering
for the worse in his claim that one hungers (1 Cor 11.21); here Paul offers a strik-
ingly pragmatic solution: if someone hungers, let that one eat in the house (11.34).
To understand v. 34A as an expression of Pauls concern for the wealthy, whose
appetites are not satisfied by a meagre Eucharistic celebration, seems to disregard
the fact that the earlier instance of hunger refers to the ones not having, among
whom hunger itself is more prevalent anyway.
42
So, in this closing exhortation,
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41 Notably, the traditional concessional reading may be based in part on 1 Cor 14.35, where the
phrase r v oi xm seems to stand in contrast with r v r xxpoi o . Such an appeal loses its force
if Fee and others are right in construing 14.345 as an inauthentic textual gloss on both text-
critical and exegetical grounds (see Fee, First Epistle, 699708). Even accepting its current
place within 1 Corinthians, though, this isolated instance does not seem weighty enough to
counter the evidence of the present argument.
42 If we take the gravity of the situation to its logical end, a related exegetical move that cannot
be developed here would be to construe the judgment of 11.30 (referring to those who are
weak, sick, and even dead) as the natural consequence of that hunger.
Paul not only urges his hearers to welcome or await one another;
43
they are to let
the hungry in their midst eat!
Finally, in such a commendation Paul echoes one of his most often-cited
scriptural predecessors. For when Isaianic prophecy considers the service that is
pleasing to God, it knits together several of our passages key words, including
bread, hunger, and house. The prophet has Yahweh ask:
Is not this the fast that I choose? . . .
Is it not to share your bread (to v o ptov) with the hungry (arivm vti),
and bring the homeless poor into your house (to v oi xov)? . . .
If you give your food to the hungry (om arivm vti to v o ptov)
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday. (Isa 58.67, 10)
If Paul seriously grapples with the problem of hunger in 1 Cor 11, and if he consist-
ently addresses the hunger of the ones not having, such a prophetic pronounce-
ment from his cherished scriptural treasure box points to the house as a place
where the hungering members of the community should be fed.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have found that Pauls driving concern in this passage is
the damaging effects of a community whose table practices entail sharp divisions
between the poor (one goes hungry) and the wealthy (another gets drunk). In
response to this alarming problem, Paul offers the Last Supper tradition as a nar-
rative paradigmfor the Corinthians gathering to eat, a paradigmthat stresses the
self-giving dynamic of the Lords death. Thus, we find no room, in this sustained
argument, for the dismissal of the wealthy hungry to their own private homes;
instead, we have proposed that Paul is urging just the opposite: use these houses
that you have for the upbuilding of the community, for the eradication of di-
visions that sharpen the distinction between the ones having and the ones not
having.
If Anyone Hungers . . .: An Integrated Reading of 1 Cor 11.1734 207
43 Fee ably navigates the exegetical problems surrounding the verb r xor ro0oi, which can
mean await (as is true in the only other Pauline use in 1 Cor 16.11) or simply welcome (3
Macc 5.26; Josephus, Ant. 7.351; and the Tebtunis Papyrus 1.33): Since Paul uses the stronger
compound apekdechomai for the concept of await or wait for, and since there is no sure
evidence that prolambanei in v. 21 means to eat beforehand, it seems most likely that Paul
here is urging the wealthy to demonstrate normal Christian hospitality (Fee, First Epistle,
568). Hays concurs, noting that this interpretation provides a more satisfying solution to the
problem sketched in verses 2122 (First Corinthians, 203). The point is only amplified by the
observation that Paul has in this passage built his case for understanding normal Christian
hospitality according to the self-giving act of death of the Lord.
Such an integrated, ecclesiocentric reading of 1 Cor 11.22 and 11.34 only makes
more sense in light of the broader context of the entire epistle. Throughout this
letter, Pauls message to the congregation bears the marks of what he calls the
o yo . . . o tou otoupou (1.18), a logic that radically reverses the power structures
of the world in which the congregation lives. As he addresses a series of highly
pragmatic concerns,
44
Paul repeatedly explicates for the fledgling community the
practice of self-sacrifice for the upbuilding of others, a dynamic succinctly
expressed in 10.24: Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other. Like
the apostle himself, the Corinthians are called to proclaim the eschatological
reversal inaugurated by the cross. In this case, that proclamation takes the shape
of a commonplace meal (a morally neutral ori avov) realigned through the logic of
the Last Supper narrative to become a xupioxo v ori avov. Only in that way do the
Corinthian Christians embody the eschatological wisdom of God. And only in that
way do they heed the charge of Paul to live every facet of their lives in the way of
the cross: Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything
for the glory of God (10.31).
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44 These concerns include the marriage relationship (7.4), the idol food issue (8.13; 10.24), Pauls
own apostolic rights (9.1819), and the gift of tongues (14.1819).