PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

It is not surprising then, that Clement of Rome, in urging the Corinthians to abandon
partisanship forty years later, establishes not only this church’s prior unity, but firstly its
fundamental orientation of humility:
1 Clement 2:1
All of you were humble, never boasting, submitting rather than demanding
submission, gladly giving rather than receiving, happy with the things provided
by God.
Clement observes that their subsequent loss of unity flowed from a fundamental loss of
humility:
1 Clement 3:1-2
All glory and growth were given to you, and that which is written was fulfilled:
“The one I loved ate and drank and grew and became fat and kicked”. From this
came zeal and envy, strife and factions, persecution and homelessness, war and
captivity.
Paul’s “unveiling” of the critical issue is followed by an intensely challenging ironic
crescendo in 4:8-13, which serves to heighten and crystallise the proud, autonomous,
present-obsessed orientation which has really been in view since 1:10.
4:13
This verse encapsulates the ironic apostolic self-deprecation of 4:8-13: “Up to this
moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.” The problem of
prematurely triumphant self-assertion is reflected in Paul’s ironic, emphatically present,
abasement.
Wayne Meeks comments:
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