IX



FIRST CORINTHIANS 13

Interim and Recognition I T IS an astonishing fact – and the earnest student of the New Testament will profit by learning to live with it – that the passages of Paul's Epistles which we most prefer as devotional readings exhibit the most influence of Epicurus. Among the foremost of these is the hymn to love, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians. It falls into two parts: the first seven verses are a unit, as also the last six. The theme of the first unit is brotherly love, which, like faith and hope, should prevail on earth; the theme of the second unit is divine love, which is eternal and will prevail in heaven. In the hymn as a whole there is a crescendo of interest, importance, and, it must be added, of difficulty. This difficulty has its basis in two hidden assumptions of Paul's thought, without which exact understanding is impossible. The first assumption is that of the interim, which conditions Paul's thinking, the feeling that men of his generation were living under temporary conditions; the second assumption is that of recognition, the belief that mutual recognition occurs between man and God at the moment of profession of faith and continues as a progressive experience in the Christian life, arriving at a climax on the last day, the end of the interim. The concept of the interim will turn out to be Jewish in origin while the concept of recognition will be identified as a constituent of the philosophy and literature of Greece. The interaction of the two, when once apprehended, will furnish a key to the formulation of Paul's doctrine and exemplify at the same time the process of transition from philosophy to religion. In the study of brotherly love the chief assistance will come from a knowledge of Epicurean ethics. By the help of this, in particular, the euphonious obscurity of "Love beareth all things" and the rest of verse 7 may be replaced by precision and lucidity. In the second half of the chapter the chief assistance will come from a knowledge of the teachings of Epicurus about the attitude of the gods toward mankind. To be specific, his assertion of the complete aloofness of the gods to human affairs was a challenge to Paul to assert the recognition of man by God, a doctrine which he elaborated. In this instance the repulsive force of the teaching of Epicurus furnished the stimulus to invent and refine the substitute doctrine. Lastly, another of our familiar mistranslations, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity," will be corrected in the light of the concept of the interim.

Sounding Brass As a prelude to the study of brotherly love an elucidation is due to be made, long overdue, in fact, of the innuendo of "sounding brass" and "tinkling cymbal," with which Paul's hymn begins. In order to rescue this innuendo from the obscurity shed over it by the lapse of time, recourse must be taken to a quick glance at Greek religion. In the great age of Greece there were but a few oracles, Apollo's at Delphi enjoying a solitary precedence. This was consulted almost exclusively by governments, kings, and princes. In the course of time, as aristocratic societies were leveled down and the political centers of gravity shifted elsewhere, a multitude of local oracles and other devices of prediction rose to popularity. Most of these made a prey of superstitious people, just as organized gambling in our own time makes capital of events in the future for the exploitation of light-minded and improvident individuals. Some of the new prophetic cults were imported from Asia and Egypt and from the former came the most notorious, the worship of Cybele, so-called Mother of the Gods, chiefly associated with Mount Berecynthus in Phrygia. It was the most notorious because it took the form of a traveling religious circus, going from city to city and bringing prophecy to the door of the consumer, as it were. The image of the goddess, represented as a portly dame with a turreted crown upon her head, was borne in procession through the streets, bobbing this way and that upon the back of an unfortunate ass. She was accompanied by a throng of weird attendants jangling tambourines, beating drums, clashing cymbals, and blowing huge horns of brass. Flowers and coins were strewn in their path by superstitious multitudes, roused to hysteria by the spectacle of an exotic mystery religion gauged to their own vulgar level. Of this excitement the priests took advantage by telling fortunes for such fees as could be extorted from their victims. These barbarian priests were infamous for their egotism and effrontery, and all the instruments of their worship became symbols of self-advertising, often known to the ancients as vainglory or self-love. For example, in the very lifetime of Christ there flourished in Rome a Greek poet named Apion, especially notorious for egotism. He was styled by the philosopher Seneca "the drum of his own fame," but it remained for the Emperor Tiberius to dub him, with a grimness of satire characteristic of the Romans, "the cymbal of the universe," which meant the greatest egotist on earth. This noisy worship of Cybele was in the mind of Paul when he took up his pen to write First Corinthians 13; he was calling attention to a vice in order to gain attention for the corresponding virtue, branding with scorn the self-advertising egotism of the pagan priests in order to gain increased esteem for self-obliterating brotherly love. It is consequently an error to follow the Revised Standard Version and change "sounding brass" to a "noisy gong." The reference is to the huge brass horn – really of bronze – of Cybele's worshipers, which was an object of common knowledge. Even in Rome it had the same significance, as is evidenced by lines of the poet Horace, who died a scant four years before the birth of Christ, Odes 1:18: "Silence the made tambourines and the Berecynthian horn, of which the handmaids are blind self-love and vainglory, tossing an empty head too high." If the merits of translations be weighed, it will be difficult to improve upon "sounding brass," but a bit more precision of connotation may be gained by "blaring horn" or "blaring brass." As for "clanging cymbal," this is an improvement over "tinkling cymbal," but "blatant cymbal" will be closer to the Greek, which suggests a vulgar bid for public attention. Our understanding of still another verse may possibly be bettered if we keep this topic of self-love or egotism well in mind; and we shall be justified in so doing, because Paul is very tenacious of his topic. Let us then reconsider the words, "and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains." This can hardly mean faith in God, which is incompatible with egotism. It must rather mean faith in one's self, self-confidence. The reference will then be to boastful Homeric heroes, such as Ajax, who, having spent his weapons, seizes upon a huge rock, "such as two men would not avail to lift," and hurls it at his foe. This innuendo, obscured for us, would have been a schoolboy commonplace to Greeks. In their schools they memorized Homer, and the Homeric heroes were notorious for self-glorification. Two notes of interest and importance remain to be recorded upon this topic of self-love. We still possess in extensive fragments a treatise by the Epicurean Philodemus of Gadara under the title of Pride or Arrogance, which is a synonym for the same vice. In this treatise he makes the significant observation that with the proud or arrogant man no cooperation is possible. That brotherly love, on the contrary, signifies sympathetic consideration for others and consequently renders feasible the working together that was to characterize each Christian group is made clear in verse 7, of which a new interpretation and translation will presently be offered. Paul is here treading in the footsteps of Epicurus, as will be made clear by the second of the two notes that were promised. The treatise of Philodemus on Pride or Arrogance was the tenth book of his comprehensive study entitled On Vices and the Corresponding Virtues. How often Paul availed himself of this device of opposing the vice to the virtue has been abundantly demonstrated already. In this particular chapter he leads off by denouncing the vice of egotism or self-love before describing the virtue. When he comes to describe the virtue, he turns the Epicurean device of instruction into a trick of style, a most effective trick, which consists in defining the virtue by the vice, as in verses 4-5: "Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude." No small part of the charm of this chapter as a devotional reading depends upon this adopted antithesis.

Love Hopeth All Things Conspicuous among the many merits of this hymn to love is a rhythm of phrasing that awakens in the subconscious mind the memory of certain psalms. The effect depends in the main upon the repetition of a given pattern of words, which may be observed at its best in the King James version of verse 7: "Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." This charm is by no means accidental, because there is an unmistakable vein of poetry in Paul's disposition, and it may be said of his Epistles that, like the King James Version itself, they were "appointed to be read in churches." Nevertheless it may be added without hesitation that he stopped short of sacrificing the meaning for the sake of the sound, as if a light-minded poetaster or a shallow rhetorician. It is consequently justifiable to ask ourselves what meaning really lies concealed beneath the gentle rhythm of this memorable verse. The meaning is certainly not on the surface, or if it is, we are no longer conditioned to apprehend it. What, then, would it have suggested to the Corinthians? Our disability arises in part from the fact that we do not call love and friendship by the same name, as did both Epicurus and Paul. To Epicurus both were philia; to Paul both were agape. Both words would have been familiar to Paul's readers in Corinth and both words would have signified friendship as well as love. If, then, we English readers can only divest ourselves of the habit of separating friendship from love, we shall have taken the first step toward recognizing in this seventh verse four qualities of true friendship according to the creed of Epicurus. It will be well to have the text before us: "Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." A single searching glance will reveal that something is amiss. What is the difference, for example, between "beareth all things" and "endureth all things"? This is sheer tautology and Paul thinks too precisely and writes too precisely to be guilty of it. There must be an error of translation in one or the other. It turns out to be in the former. The Greek text does not read "beareth all things" but "keeps secret all things," or something similar. What this means, in turn, may readily be explained by recourse to Epicureanism. To Epicurus love was friendship and friendship demanded loyalty. "Incorruptible loyalty" was the virtue chosen by the poet Horace to describe a deceased Epicurean friend. Moreover, men ought to feel gratitude for friendship and, according to Epicurus, "The wise man alone will feel true gratitude and in respect of his friends, whether present or absent, will be of the same mind throughout the journey of life." This means that the loyal friend will not belittle his friend behind his back or endure to hear him belittled. He will know his faults but will not be guilty of letting them become the topic of conversation with others. Even more precision is possible. The members of each Epicurean group were committed to the practice of mutual admonition. They were to confide in one another. Paul fostered a like practice in his own churches, though he never seems to mention the virtue of confession so specifically as it is found in the Epistle of James, 5:16: "Confess your faults to one another." It is in his mind, however, and part of his meaning is that these confidences must be respected. It is for this reason that he writes: "Love keeps secret all things." If, then, we aim at a version that will include both loyal silence concerning a friend's faults and loyal respect for faults confessed, we may suggest, "Love is always trustworthy." Defined by its opposite, the virtue may be worded, "Love never is false to a friend" or "Love never betrays a confidence." The second phrase in verse 7, "believeth all things," is equally vague and obscure as we have it. This should rather be rendered, "Love is always trustful." This virtue is reciprocal to the former. Just as the true friend will always be loyal, so he will believe his friends to be worthy of loyalty. He will not be suspicious. This topic of suspicion was a hackneyed one in ancient literature. Tyrants were notoriously distrustful of friends and would often ply them with wine in order to discover their real feelings. Hence the familiar saying, in vino veritas, that is, "Drunken men tell the truth." This trickery was specifically denounced by Epicurus; he is on record as saying that the wise man, who is to him the good man, "certainly will not watch men in their cups." He is also on record as repudiating the compulsory sharing of goods, "because that sort of thing was for those who did not trust one another, and if for such, it was not for friends." It is the recognition of such teachings that demands the change from the obscure "believeth all things" to "Love is always trustful." Defined by its opposite, this means, "Love is never suspicious." Just as love or friendship must be both trustworthy and trustful at all times, so it must also be hopeful, and this is the meaning of "hopeth all things." As made plain already in the foregoing chapter, in the ethic of Epicurus hopefulness is an attitude toward the future, deliberately chosen and pragmatically justified. It is assumed that the individual's experience can and must be controlled, the whole life must be rationally planned so as to ensure peace of mind and health of body, and this planning justifies the hope of pleasures to come. This attitude is an essential of the happy life; not only is the individual the happier for being hopeful; he contributes also to the happiness of others. The virtue is social. So, instead of "Love hopeth all things," we may better read, "Love is always hopeful." Defining the virtue by its opposite, we may write: "Love is never pessimistic." The last item in the list, "endureth all things," must, like the others, be interpreted in the sphere of human relations. We may be helped by knowledge of a running controversy between Epicureans and Stoics. The latter maintained that all offenses are equal; the man who steals a cabbage from his neighbor's garden is no less guilty than the man who robs a temple. The Epicureans, a charitable and forgiving sect, took a different view; they believed in making the punishment fit the crime. Their attitude toward the trifling faults and frailties of their fellow men was similar. Epicurus himself laid stress upon the virtue that may be called considerateness; in his definition it approximates to the Golden Rule, though it falls short of recommending to turn the other cheek. Here are his words: "We value our own characters just as we do our private property, whether or not this be of the best and such as men would covet for themselves; in the same way we ought to have respect for the characters of others, if they are considerate." This seems to be a rather novel way of looking at neighborly relations. Your neighbor's character, Epicurus seems to say, deserves to be treated with the same respect as his house. To modernize the application of this, if the mere thought of smashing a neighbor's windows would shame a man, why should not the thought of belittling his personality seem equally shameful? He may have his faults and defects. He may be extremely economical but this is no valid excuse for calling him Pinchpenny. His disposition may be unduly mild but this would not justify dubbing him Milquetoast. He may have a long visage but he need not be called Horseface. He may talk too much but this would not excuse the gibe of Gabby Jones. Have we no faults or defects ourselves? Forbearance should be mutual. Therefore, instead of "Love endureth all things," we may more correctly read, "Love is always tolerant." The negative version will be, "Love is never censorious." The whole verse may now be rendered with more precision than before: "Love is always trustworthy, always trustful, always hopeful, always tolerant." The negative versions will run: "Love is never treacherous, never suspicious, never pessimistic, never censorious."

Interim and Recognition At this point it will be profitable to pause and take a second and more discerning glance over the structure of this fascinating chapter. From the Hebrew point of view it seems to be a psalm of love; it exhibits a rhythm of language that harmonizes aptly with the rhythm of thought; one sentiment follows another like gentle waves lapping upon a beach, after the fashion of the twenty-third psalm. At the same time we catch the glimmer of Greek philosophy. When we read, "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth," this must be recognized as the Epicurean device of instruction, employed here as a trick of style, again opposing "the vice to the corresponding virtue." From another point of view this chapter may with equal propriety be regarded as an ode to love in the Greek manner. The Greek ode exhibits a definite pattern of arrangement. The thought moves lightly from one aspect to another of a single theme, following a chosen association of ideas, which may conceal a genuine logic. Such is the procedure here. The first aspect of love is the ugly one, egotism or self-love, which blows its own horn and beats the drum of its own fame. Next come the dual aspects of love, the virtues defined by the vices. Last comes the summary in verse 7, four aspects of true brotherly love or friendship. The rest of this hybrid of poetical invention, psalm of love or ode to love, verses 8-13, presents new aspects of the pervading theme, which cannot be understood unless the assumptions that underlie them have been detected and rendered explicit. These assumptions have been obscured for the modern reader by the ruthless march of time, although to ancient readers they were the veriest commonplace.

Interim The first of these assumptions may be called the idea of the interim, by which is signified Paul's conviction that the generation to which he belonged was living under temporary conditions. The termination of this interim was to be marked by the second coming of Christ, the signal for the general resurrection. The prior limit of the interim was the resurrection of Christ himself. Thus Paul's generation was thought to be living in the interim of time between the two resurrections. It may go without saying that this notion of an interim was not original with Paul but in one form or another had been a component of public thought from a date long before this time. We should find the history of the idea both interesting and profitable. For the purpose of detecting its origin a principle espoused by Epicurus himself may prove useful. It was his contention that Nature, the sole creatrix, manifests herself in the cumulative experience of each race and in the aggregate experience of mankind. History is thus the evolution of the unintended. This implies that actions always precede words and events precede ideas. To apply this principle to the notion of the interim, the event that preceded and was the cause of it was the downfall of the kingdom in Israel. The reaction of the Hebrew prophets to this event was to predict the restoration of the kingdom and to this end a divine king must come with supernatural power, that is, the Messiah. Such, then, was the origin of the notion of the interim; in its original form it was the space of time between the downfall of the kingdom and the expected restoration. It manifested itself in the public mind as a sense of temporariness in things, sometimes contemplated with fear and despair, sometimes with ardent hope. The speed with which it took possession of the mind of Israel is not astonishing, because the mass opinion of the race had long been shaped to a major degree by prophecy; but the rapidity with which it extended itself to neighboring peoples is truly astounding. The savior sentiment became a universal component of the public imagination. The sense of temporariness and expectancy imparted a tremendous impulse to the arts of prophecy. The picayune predictions of Apollo were suddenly outmoded and his very name became obscured in the growing popularity of his own priestesses, the Sibyllae, who began to chart the future in the grander style of the Hebrews. Their language alone was Greek. Astrology also sprang to sudden popularity and swept rapidly from east to west. The comet that appeared after the murder of Julius Caesar gave a smart fillip to the notion of the savior star. The star, the Sibyl, and the divine child were all celebrated in the poetry of Virgil before the birth of Christ. The glamour of these oriental ideas attached itself to the name of Caesar, the more readily because the Romans themselves, long plagued by civil wars, had become conscious of living in an interim of time. It should not be astonishing, therefore, that when order seemed to have been restored at last, a superstitious senate conferred upon the younger Caesar the title of Augustus, which is as close as the Latin language can approach to the idea of "the anointed one." Having clearly apprehended this notion of the interim, we can now discern a serious mistranslation in the last verse of this challenging chapter, "but the greatest of these is love." Paul reasons precisely and writes precisely and we ought to translate him precisely. It is not the superlative degree of the adjective that he here employs but the comparative, and what he writes means "but love ranks higher than these." He does not tell us but leaves it to us to discern that faith and hope are not of the nature of God himself but belong exclusively to human experience. They are virtues of the interim and being such will terminate, while love, being of the nature of God himself, will never end. It is for this reason that love ranks higher. The correction of the translation, however, must await a fuller discussion of the notion of the interim.

Knowledge and the Interim We must next observe that belief in the interim reacts also upon the thinker's conception of knowledge. Epicurus, for example, believing as he did that mortal life is an interim between two eternities of unconsciousness, was bound also to assume that the only kind of knowledge is that which characterizes the interim of mortal life. There was nothing in consequence to deter him from judging his own system of knowledge to be perfect, which he did; he called it "true reason" or "true philosophy" or simply "truth" and his disciples boasted of their devotion to this "truth." Paul, with his usual acumen, pounced upon this assumption of perfection and proceeded to belittle it as a fallacy. Believing as he did in the temporariness of things, he was bound to believe also in two kinds of knowledge, the one of the interim and imperfect, the other of eternity and perfect. From this it followed by cogent inference that the philosophy of Epicurus must be of this transitory world and by virtue of this fact imperfect.

When I Was a Child If this argument commends itself as a shrewd one, it still falls short of revealing the full measure of Paul's acumen. He casually presses the same logic to another notch and denominates the philosophy of Epicurus as doubly inferior, first, because it is of this temporary world and consequently imperfect, and second, because it is typical of the shorter interim of human life that we call adolescence and consequently juvenile. It may, of course, seem to be a sort of vandalism to seize upon this gem of diction out of the King James Bible, the verse that begins "When I was a child, I spake as a child," jettison all the pensive sentiment it inevitably evokes, and discern beneath the pensiveness, which we falsely read into it, a biting specimen of logical satire; but, if our quest be the discovery of Paul's meaning and if this quest is not to be relinquished, then as satire it must be identified. It may even happen that a new and worthier pensiveness may be restored to it. Already in the study of Galatians 4:3 we have discovered the use of the word child to be an error of translation. The Greek word, it is true, means an infant in the sense that English law regards all individuals short of legal age as infants; but the word has connotations outside of law. To Paul it denotes one who has not yet arrived at the age of discretion, mental maturity. So in Galatians 4:3 we have emended the translation to read: "When we were juveniles, we were slaves to the elements of the universe." This means that in the interim of adolescence we were captivated by the philosophy of Epicurus. If by this time we have achieved willingness to sacrifice an exquisite specimen of simple diction for the sake of the real meaning, verse 11 may be paraphrased as follows: "When I was a sophomore, I used to indulge in reckless talk, the way sophomores do; I used to entertain wild ideas, the way sophomores do; I used to startle people with smart arguments, the way sophomores do. When I became a real adult person, I made an end of such antics." The reference, overt to ancient readers though covert to us, is to the Epicureans. Paul is mocking the mockers, tossing back from his own trench a grenade of their throwing. It was their pleasure to ridicule the idea of the resurrection as silliness; it was his pleasure to damn their brand of knowledge as typical of the folly of adolescence. In his view of things the interim of time in which his generation was living was bound to be characterized by imperfection of knowledge but the creed of Epicurus was of a quality much lower; it was excusable only as the irresponsible thinking of the smaller interim of adolescence, something that was part of the process of growing up but due to be outgrown. Having improved our understanding of this verse by a paraphrase, perhaps we may gain further benefit by a sort of parody, dilating the innocent language of the King James Version to admit authenticated items of Epicurean doctrine, such as Paul detested: "The age of adolescence will talk recklessly as if the only things that are not seen are beggarly specks of matter called atoms; it will have wild ideas as if God lived aloof to the affairs of mankind; it will shock pious people by adducing reasons for believing that the world was no more created for the sake of man than for the sake of beetles."

Now We See in a Mirror, Indistinctly Having thoroughly discounted the philosophy of materialism by an innuendo perspicuous at the time, though for us understandable only by paraphrase and parody, Paul resumes his theme with a variation, as befits the author of an ode. Neither is it unbefitting that this variation is a figure of speech, slightly obscure for us, though less so than the innuendo that precedes. The ancients knew only mirrors of bronze, darker than brass at best, and usually tarnished. So we should read: "Now we see in a mirror, indistinctly, but then face to face." To us modern readers this seemingly innocent verse may be an invitation to relaxation of mind and the contemplative mood, but in reality it is packed with meaning and should be challenging to the attention. Individual words will be found to repay separate scrutiny, and hints will be uncovered of the unexpressed assumptions of Paul's thought and also of the public mind of his time. An immediate reward will be the promised correction of the translation, though additional dividends of value will also accrue. When Paul writes "Now we see," his specific reference is to the temporary conditions of the interim of time in which he believed his own generation to be living, awaiting the second coming; when in the next verse he writes "Now I know in part," the reference is the same. When he writes "but then I shall know," the reference is to the occasion of the second coming and its glorious sequels. The mistranslation comes in the last verse, which by the King James Version is made to begin, "And now abideth faith, hope, charity," and by the Revised Standard, "So faith, hope, love abide." What has been overlooked is the fact that Paul has switched from a casual Greek word meaning "now" to an emphatic synonym, which may be rendered "as things now are." This correction enables us to detect and correct a second error, which lies in "abideth" or "abide." As already pointed out, faith and hope differ from love in being virtues of the interim, which terminates at the second coming, while love is eternal, being of the nature of God himself. A precise version will then read: "But as things now are, faith, hope, love remain valid, these three, but love ranks higher than these two." Faith and hope are appointed to lose validity but not love.

The Concept of Recognition The next step for us is to follow up a second clue of thought, which has lain unobserved in the verse that mentions the mirror. The key words are "indistinctly, but then face to face," which presume a concept of recognition that was part of the popular psychology of Paul's time. If this concept shall seem strange to us, there is all the more reason for the effort to become familiar with it; Paul's reasoning will be found to hinge upon it. To begin at the beginning is a sound plan of procedure, even at the risk of being tedious, and this brings us back to Epicurus. In the world of Paul he occupied a position not unlike that of Sigmund Freud in our own day. Freud, though infinitely irritating, has captured the public attention. Epicurus succeeded in holding the attention of the ancient world for seven centuries, irritating men over the whole period. In the fourth century the Christian Lactantius was still smarting over Epicurean ridicule of "the wrath of God," though at the same time conceding that the disciples of Epicurus had always outnumbered the adherents of other sects. If in the fourth century it was still impossible for Lactantius to ignore Epicureanism, then on the wane, in the first century it was infinitely more impossible for Paul to ignore it, because it was already popular and widely diffused and still on the increase. It was well publicized in handy texts, which were often revised. Among these was a standard handbook entitled On the Sensations, the work of Metrodorus. From this book and basic writings of Epicurus himself were derived certain notions of psychology which then prevailed. These enjoyed the greater vogue because the Stoics, always apt at imitating success, assisted in the work of popularizing them. We can make immediate progress by becoming acquainted with a specimen of Epicurean psychology. The textbooks have perished but sufficient evidences survive for the reconstruction of a sample lecture. Let us assume that the observer discerns something white moving in the distance in the twilight. It may be a white ox or it may be a human being dressed in white. It comes nearer; it is recognized to be a human figure. It may be a man or it may be a woman. It comes still nearer; it is seen to be a man. It continues to come nearer; it is seen to be bearded. As it draws closer it is seen to walk with the shoulders slightly stooped. At last it comes into plain view; the observer recognizes the man and exclaims, "It is Plato." Now this exposition, which must needs be made so very explicit for the modern man, would have been for intelligent readers of Paul's time the sheerest commonplace. They would have been familiar, for instance, with the principles illustrated in this synthetic lecture: first, the particulars or parts are discerned in advance of the whole; second, the act of recognition is a synthesis of the parts or particulars; and third, only the immediate sensation is dependable – it alone results in a definite recognition. Such is the concept of recognition in its simplest form; to allow it to grow in our minds will be a revealing experience, because it exhibits various aspects. In the meanwhile, what is the application of it? What are we to read out of it? We are to read this, that Paul employs the then familiar terminology and ideology of sensation in order to explain things that lie beyond the range of sensation. We are catching him in the very act of making himself "as a Greek to the Greeks," drawing upon the resources of philosophy to build his structure of religion. Epicurus divided all existing things into two classes: those that lie within the range of sensation and those that lie beyond the range of sensation. This may be paraphrased as the seen and the unseen, the visible and the invisible. Paul takes over this division of things, employing the very same words, orata, aorata, which no other writer employs in the New Testament. Yet what a difference of application! To Epicurus the invisible things, too minute to be discerned by the physical eye, are the atoms, which are eternal. To Paul the invisible things are spiritual, God himself, for example, who is eternal. In this quest it is vital to observe that the knowledge of spiritual things, and the knowledge of God in particular, is arrived at through an experience of recognition no less than knowledge of physical things, including human beings. In fact there is no choice open to Paul but to employ the terminology of physical sensation to describe the spiritual experience. It should be recalled that only when the approaching figure has come close can the observer say, "It is Plato." So in Paul's verse, "Now we see in a mirror, indistinctly, but then face to face," the "face to face" recognition will be final and decisive. It is just as if the living man, caught up in glory on the last day, should exclaim, "This is God!" Yet this event, even if comparable to a blinding physical experience, will be much more; it will also be a spiritual experience. It will be a final realization of the nature of God. It will be an experience of recognition.

Aspects of Recognition After this anticipatory glance over the topic of recognition we shall profit by attempting a closer scrutiny. It exhibits various aspects. It is essentially an experience of discovery and operates on all levels of learning, whether sensory, rational, or spiritual. On the sensory level we recognize a person; this is a discovery of identity only; it answers the question "Who is it?" On the rational level we recognize, for example, that Paul has a double ethic, one of the interim and destined to terminate at the resurrection, the other permanent. This is an experience of the mind. On the spiritual level, although we still employ the terminology of sensory experience, the question is no longer "Who is it?" but rather "What is he like?" or "What is his true nature?" and the answer is found in First John 3:2: "We shall see him as he is." Certain special aspects of recognition will next claim our attention. When we recognize the identity of a person on the street, this is an involuntary act, and we recognize many with whom we have no personal acquaintance. In the case of those people who are personal friends or acquaintances we may or may not choose to recognize them by a greeting or gesture, because this act is voluntary and quite distinct from the involuntary recognition of identity. We are now approaching something important. The act of recognition may be elevated to the rank of a ritual or a formality. For example, the President of the United States on the advice of his Cabinet may concede or withhold the recognition of a foreign power. If recognition is conceded, the representative of such country is received at the White House and welcomed to the circle of foreign ministers. The importance of this aspect of recognition lies in the fact that it is part of Paul's mind and unless we apprehend it ourselves we shall misunderstand what Paul writes and also mistranslate it. An example of this error may be found in First Corinthians 15:34, where the Revised Standard reads: "For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame." If some people have no knowledge of God because they were never told about him, this is no reason for shame but rather for pity. In point of fact, the question in this instance is not a matter of knowledge at all but rather of recognition; the people concerned have been told about God and still refuse recognition, which is an affront to God. Hence the shame. It is an insult just as the refusal of an individual to recognize his superior or the refusal of one government to recognize another is an insult. If Paul's words in the above verse be closely scrutinized in the Greek, we shall discover that he is not merely stating a fact but resorting to an idiom of characterization. He is informing the Corinthians of a group among them who know about God but are so shameless as to offer him affront by refusing to recognize him. In Paul's language, to know God has a technical meaning; no other means of entering upon this knowledge exists except to recognize God by recognizing the resurrected Christ. The word recognition is also technical in force and virtually indispensable. Hence we may translate: "For some among you are refusing recognition to God. I say this to your shame."

Mutual Recognition Still other aspects of recognition await exploration. The believer's experience of God, which is begun by his recognition of the Son of God in the person of the resurrected Christ, is not one-sided but reciprocal. At the same moment that the individual recognizes the Son he is recognized by the Father. This detail of doctrine finds its confirmation in Galatians 4:9: "but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God." This verse not only demonstrates the reciprocal nature of the experience but also contains the fruitful hint that the recognition of the individual by God is the more significant part of the said experience. This aspect of the recognition, however, must await its turn elsewhere. Another verse that possesses bearing upon the mutual or reciprocal nature of recognition is found in First Corinthians 8:3: "But if one loves God, he is known by him." This is one of many instances where Paul's reasoning is highly syncopated. It is here plainly implied, though not expressly stated, that knowledge does not constitute a valid bid for recognition by God. It "puffs up" but has no promise of things to come. It is the love of the individual for God that qualifies the individual for recognition by God and contains the promise of growth to come. Elsewhere, however, it is the profession of faith in the resurrected Christ that constitutes the valid claim for recognition by God. By what reasoning, then, can love be substituted for faith? The answer may be found in Galatians 5:6, if correctly translated; faith must be activated by love. Love, in a sense, is faith at work. If a man really loves God, he will also love his neighbor and refrain from causing him to do wrong, for example, by eating meat sacrificed to idols. By this practical demonstration of brotherly love he will qualify for recognition by God and "be known by God." In order to explore the next aspect of recognition we must recall the doctrine of Epicurus which asserted the total indifference of the gods toward human wickedness. Reciprocal to this was his teaching that these same gods were not indifferent toward the pious. His words are worth quoting, not only for their intrinsic importance but also because they occur in his letter addressed to a lad Menoeceus, a minor gem of Greek literature, which Paul himself gives evidence of having known at first hand: "[The gods] being exclusively concerned with their own virtues, are receptive toward those like themselves, deeming all that is not such as alien." By their own virtues he means chiefly tranquillity, unruffled calm, and it was even his teaching that human beings who enjoy such peace of mind may be visited by filmy images of the gods, too subtle to be apprehended by the eyes of the flesh but capable of being perceived by the mind. The significance to be observed in this teaching is the implied suggestion of the recognition of the pious by the gods. Philodemus was slightly more specific in declaring that "the gods are friends of the wise and the wise are friends of the gods." The concept of recognition, however, failed to click and this in spite of the fact that it was well understood in Epicurean psychology. It was Paul who seized upon this concept and elaborated it with explicitness, and we may be prepared to discover other coincidences in his new pattern of thought. Even the Epicurean doctrine of the indifference of the gods toward the wicked will have its analogue. There was no concept of recognition in Jewish religious thought. If we scan the Wisdom Literature, especially Psalms and Proverbs, where individuality and ethical inwardness in religious experience first become plainly manifest, all men, good or bad, are individuals in the sight of God. He may look upon the wicked with disfavor but he is by no means unaware of their identity. He is displeased with them or even angry at them as individuals. Paul the innovator had no hesitation in rejecting this easy and informal attitude. He institutes a new and specific qualification for the divine favor, the profession of faith in the resurrected Christ. Mankind is no longer divided into the righteous and the wicked, both of them alike being individuals in God's sight; the new division is into believers and unbelievers. The former are recognized by God and become individuals in his sight; upon the latter God turns his back -- they become a nameless multitude without individuality. We find Paul's teaching on this question in the first chapter of Romans, especially verse 28, of which the translation in the Revised Standard leaves much to be desired: "And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct." The cardinal error in this translation is to dispense with the word recognition; this is technical and will not admit of a substitute. It is a mistake also to overlook an idiom of characterization over and above the statement of fact; Paul is not only stating what these men did but also what kind of men they were. So we may tentatively translate: "And since they disapproved of vouchsafing recognition to God, God abandoned them to their reprobate minds and to go on with their sins." This doctrine becomes highly astonishing when we observe how closely Paul is approaching the position of Epicurus. The declaration of the latter that the gods regarded all who were not like themselves as "alien" should be recalled. How better could this adjective alien be amplified than to say with Paul that "God abandoned them to their reprobate minds and to go on with their sins"? In other words, the wicked have become to God, as they were to the gods of Epicurus, a nameless multitude, with no more individuality than sheep. Yet this parallelism of doctrine does not stand alone. God is no longer ordaining any temporal punishment for wickedness. He is thus relieved of his duties as an officer of law enforcement, which Epicurus ridiculed as demeaning to the sanctity of the divine being. Neither is any punishment for wickedness put in prospect for the world to come. Thus Hell is abolished just as it was abolished by Epicurus. There is a difference, however; God is still a god of wrath and the penalty appointed for the wicked is annihilation at the last day.

The Bid for Recognition Now at last it becomes possible to integrate neatly the concept of recognition into Paul's new structure of doctrine. This concept becomes reciprocal to God's abandonment of unbelievers to their reprobate minds and continuance of sin. If God had not assumed this attitude, no necessity would have arisen for the individual to make a bid for recognition by God. The individual must make the first move. He must recognize Jesus as the Son of God in the person of the resurrected Christ. This is his bid for recognition by God the Father, who instantly reciprocates by recognizing him. At that moment he ceases to be one of a multitude devoid of individuality and becomes an individual with a name, Dionysius the Areopagite or Lydia the seller of purple or whatever the name may be. Thereafter the relationship between him and God is personal. The individual becomes a person in the sight of God and God to him a person. This is what Paul means by "knowing God" or "being known by God." Yet even if a higher degree of precision seems to have been here achieved, we must not be content. Our understanding will be further improved by observing subsidiary aspects of this mutual recognition between man and God. To this end we may once more quote Galatians 4:9: "now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known of God." These words, while making clear beyond doubt the reciprocal nature of the experience, suggest also the inequality of the experience. The best that the individual can do is to afford pleasure to God but God is capable of making a richer return; he can furnish inspiration, guidance, and strength to the believer. It is consequently a temptation to emend the translation and read: "now that you have come to know God or, better still, to be known by God." The individual enters upon a new life, the life of the Spirit, which is eternal. A second inequality in this mutual recognition now awaits notice and examination. In the Greek as Paul uses it, "knowledge" is gnosis and "recognition" is epignosis. With God himself these two words are synonymous. His first recognition of the individual is knowledge of the individual; it is perfect from the first. This is not true for the individual. His first recognition of God is only the beginning of knowledge of God. This knowledge is imperfect, even if progressive, and throughout the whole interim of life in the flesh will continue to be imperfect. Fullness of knowledge must await a final experience of recognition.

The Final Recognition We are now at last equipped to scrutinize anew and interpret and translate the difficult twelfth verse of this thirteenth chapter. The words "face to face" remind us definitely that we have the phenomenon of recognition to deal with. Only the immediate sensation, as Epicurus taught, is true and dependable; the distant views fall short of exactitude. A hackneyed example in ancient times was that of the square tower, which in the distance appears to be round. Only the near view reveals its real shape. When once we have accepted the idea that this way of reasoning was commonplace in Paul's time, just as explaining human conduct by means of inferiority complexes and other inward compulsions is characteristic of the public mind today, we shall better understand why he expresses spiritual experiences in terms of sensory experiences. He may well have been influenced also by the revelation that came to him on the way to Damascus, which was at one and the same time a blinding physical experience and an explosive spiritual experience, a genuine experience of recognition, the breaking of a new horizon of understanding. Perhaps no better way of arriving at the best possible degree of precision may be found than by putting the King James translation of verse 12 to the test: "Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as also I am known." This wording exhibits the deceptive smoothness that constitutes a merit for devotional readings but misses utterly the essentials of meaning. Paul is not setting side by side two kinds of knowledge but two distinct experiences of recognition. His language is virtually technical. First of all, we must have respect for tenses. The recognition of the individual by God was a distinct and instantaneous event in the past. Therefore, instead of "even as also I am known" we should read "even as also I became known." In other words, in the experience of God himself there is no such thing as an interim; in his experience the first recognition was perfect from the first. In the experience of the individual, on the contrary, the first recognition marks the beginning of an interim; this recognition is imperfect, even if progressive. Perfection of knowledge must await an event in the future, the final recognition, which will be instantaneous, like the previous recognition by God, and will terminate the interim. The authors of the Revised Standard have endeavored to improve upon the King James but fall into the same inaccuracies: "then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood." The insertion of the word fully, because it is implied in the context, has a certain justification; but even so, instead of "even as I have been fully understood" we should read "even as I became fully understood," because God's recognition of the individual was an event in the past, single, distinct, perfect, and final. The vital defect of both versions, however, is their flatness. There is nothing in the wording to suggest the miraculous character of the anticipated experience as hinted in Philippians 3:21, when the lowly body of the believer will be changed "to be like his glorious body"; and still less are we prompted to think of the miracle of the victory over death in First Corinthians 15:52, when "the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Paul is a man of visions and he cannot but think of the religious experience in terms of vivid sensory experiences, vivid even to the degree of explosiveness. It is this bent of his mind that makes him so partial to the word recognition and the concept behind it. He takes this over from the public thought of his day but he extends it to meet the necessities of his own structure of doctrine. The experience of the resurrection is inevitably prefigured in terms of his own explosive experience on the road to Damascus. If we consult the account of that experience in the lucid words of the ninth chapter of Acts, we shall find it to begin with the words, "and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him." It was in light that Jesus manifested himself to him. The use of the word light is an obsession with Paul. He thinks of the gospel, of immortality, of heaven, of Jesus, of God, and of the resurrection all in terms of light. It is characteristic of the phenomenon of recognition that it comes with a flash. This is true even in so ordinary an experience as the recognition of a person, though more noticeably so when a person has not been seen for a long time and recognition is delayed; at the last it is an instantaneous phenomenon. It is also a pleasure. Magnify this experience to the utmost limits of the imagination and we shall descry Paul's conception of the believer's final recognition of the nature of God as we read it in First Corinthians 13:12. It will come with a burst of light, an ecstatic transition from imperfect knowledge to perfect knowledge, a dazzling visual illumination. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he will come to know God, just as he became known to God. Translation is difficult but the obligation to attempt it is mandatory. Paul's ten words are precise, compacted, and virtually technical. He does not write: "I shall know even as I was known," but literally, "I shall recognize even as I too was recognized." It is this phenomenon of recognition that cannot be ignored, an instantaneous phenomenon. Reluctantly we suggest: "Now I know in part, but in that day knowledge will come to me in a flash, just as I too became known." A last note is due on the phenomenon of recognition. No less in literature than in ancient philosophy and psychology it played a leading role, especially when the effect was heightened by suspense and surprise. In the drama the most gripping of all scenes were those in which a concealed identity was revealed at last, as when Oedipus was discovered by his own research to have been the murderer of his own father. In the whole of the Greek drama, however, no recognition scene can be found which for concentrated power of passion and surprise is the superior of that described in the unpretentious narrative of Luke, Acts 9:1-9, where Paul, prostrate and blinded, hears the words from heaven: "I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." Here in the brief space of a single paragraph we have before us in unique combination the highest essentials of the tragic drama and no less the kindred religious experience of spiritual discovery and illumination.