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PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

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If this is the case, then a literary flow in chapters 5–7, in which Corinthian proud<br />

autonomy in relation to sexual immorality, greed and impurity is corrected by the<br />

application of certain aspects of cruciformity (especially non-self-ownership), is<br />

understandable.<br />

The connections within chapters 5–7 are not thereby made completely transparent; but the<br />

tensions are arguably relieved somewhat. In each section, Paul depicts the Corinthians as<br />

boldly parading their assumed self-ownership, whether vicariously in celebrating a man<br />

who considers himself free to take his father’s wife, or judicially in grasping external<br />

vindication, or licentiously in using prostitutes, or pseudo-nobly in denying conjugal<br />

commitments. And in each section, Paul challenges confident independence, alluding to<br />

the cross as that which demands humble submission to divine ownership.<br />

Chapters 7–16 as a Separate Unified Letter, Responding to a Letter from Corinth<br />

Schmithals reasons:<br />

Now the observation that from I,7:1 on to the end of the epistle Paul makes<br />

reference in various ways to written inquiries addressed to him by the<br />

Corinthians is an important one. The sections introduced with περὶ δέ<br />

undoubtedly belong to the same letter of Paul. 133<br />

Numerous commentators agree that from 7:1, especially as seen in sections beginning περὶ<br />

δέ, Paul is responding to a letter from Corinth. Hurd writes:<br />

133 Schmithals, Gnosticism, 91.<br />

109

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