Ultimate Things by Dr. Greg Carey

Author:Dr. Greg Carey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chalice Press

According to Streete, ascetic practices create space for personal freedom, an attempt to gain control over one’s environment. She maintains that as social movements, both apocalypticism and asceticism

a.make radically dualistic distinctions between the ordinary and the ideal worlds

b.represent the present situation as the realm of Satan or the demonic

c.refuse to conform the self to the present situation or world

d.look beyond the present situation to another, ideal reality26

For example, some feminist scholars have noted that celibacy could free some women from the sexually determined conventions that bound them to particular men. The early Christian Acts of Paul and Thecla reveals how destabilizing celibacy could have been in the ancient world. A young woman named Thecla hears Paul proclaiming the gospel of celibacy, embraces it, and breaks off her engagement. Because it destabilizes society by bringing shame upon a prominent young man, her choice leads to persecution and, almost, to death. Likewise, celibate men could live free of attachment to place, status, or family origins. Whether or not this is what Paul believed or taught, that is in fact what he did. He traveled from one place to another, building alternative social networks.

Finally, celibate practices could be—and have been—inspired by eschatological hope. Distinctly apocalyptic communities such as the one at Qumran (CD 12:1–2) and the audiences in the book of Revelation (14:1–5) attest to this. People could ground eschatological celibacy in two assumptions. On the one hand, they could believe that the end of this age lies at hand and that sexual activity poses an unnecessary diversion in a time of crisis. On the other hand, they could look ahead to the new age, in which people could live like the angels who, Jesus said, “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mk. 12:25 par. Mt. 22:30; Lk. 20:35).

First Corinthians 7 reveals that all of these factors may have been at work in Paul’s mind. He counsels that those who are married “will experience fleshly distress” (7:28, author’s trans.), which may reflect either celibacy’s philosophical or its countercultural dimensions—or, very possibly, both. Paul has already identified self-control (akrasia and engkrateia) among his concerns (7:5, 9), but he also emphasizes mutuality rather than male domination (e.g., 7:4–5, 12–16). At the same time, he adds an eschatological clarification: “I am saying this…the time is drawing near” (7:29, author’s trans.). “For,” he adds, “the present form of this world is passing away” (7:31).

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