“Pneuma and the Beholding of God: Reading Paul in the Context of Philonic Mystical Traditions,”...

Volker Rabenssup1

Pneuma and the Beholding of GodReading Paul in the Context of PhilonicMystical Traditions

Philo and Paul enjoy a tradition of being read alongside each other in compara-tive studies of early Judaism and early Christianitysup2 One of the areas of recentinvestigation of the work of both authors has focused on the similarities (and dif-ferences) between their respective writings from the perspective of ldquomysticismrdquosup3

As we will see in more detail both Philo and Paul share ldquoa form of religiositywhich has the immediate experience of divine reality as its center This experi-ence which transcends everyday consciousness and cognition based on reasonis at the same time the experience of an intimate closeness to the divine realityrdquo⁴

Volker Rabens Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter in New Testament Studies Friedrich SchillerUniversity Jena (Germany) Extraordinary Associate Professor at the Faculty of Theology atNorth-West University (South Africa) Eg Henry Chadwick ldquoSt Paul and Philo of Alexandriardquo BJRL 48 (1966) 286ndash307 PederBorgen Philo John and Paul New Perspectives on Judaism and Early Christianity BJS 131 (At-lanta GA Scholars Press 1987) Sze-Kar Wan ldquoCharismatic Exegesis Philo and Paul Compa-redrdquo SPA 6 (1994) 54ndash82 Graham J Warne Hebrew Perspectives on the Human Person in theHellenistic Era Philo and Paul MBPS 35 (New York Mellen Biblical Press 1995) John M GBarclay ldquoPaul and Philo on Circumcision Romans 225ndash9 in Social and Cultural Contextrdquo NTS44 (1998) 536ndash56 John M G Barclay ldquolsquoBy the Grace of God I am what I amrsquo Grace and Agencyin Philo and Paulrdquo In Divine and Human Agency in Paul and his Cultural Environment eds JohnMG Barclay and Simon J Gathercole ECCLNTS 335 (London Continuum 2006) 140ndash57Gudrun Holtz Damit Gott sei alles in allem Studien zum paulinischen und fruumlhjuumldischen Uni-versalismus BZNW 149 (Berlin De Gruyter 2007) John M G Barclay ldquoGrace Within and BeyondReason Philo and Paul in Dialoguerdquo In Paul Grace and Freedom Essays in Honour of John KRiches eds Paul Middleton and John Kenneth Riches (London TampT Clark 2009) 9ndash21 Jona-than D Worthington Creation in Paul and Philo The Beginning and Before WUNT II317 (Tuuml-bingen Mohr Siebeck 2011) For example Gerhard Sellin ldquoDie religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergruumlnde der paulinischenlsquoChristusmystikrsquordquo TQ 176 (1996) 7ndash27 Bernhard Heininger ldquoPaulus und Philo als MystikerHimmelsreisen im Vergleich (2Kor 122ndash4 SpecLeg III 1ndash6)rdquo In Philo und das Neue TestamentWechselseitige Wahrnehmungen I Internationales Symposium zum Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum1ndash4 Mai 2003 EisenachJena eds Roland Deines and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr WUNT 172 (Tuuml-bingen Mohr Siebeck 2004) 189ndash204 Gerd Theissen ldquoPaulus und die Mystik Der eine undeinzige Gott und die Transformation des Menschenrdquo ZTK 110 (2013) 278ndash80 283ndash84 Hans-Christoph Meier Mystik bei Paulus Zur Phaumlnomenologie religioumlser Erfahrung im NeuenTestament TANZ 26 (Tuumlbingen Francke 1998) 20 emphasis added

gr00vebox
Typewritten Text
in Joumlrg Frey and John R Levison (eds) The Holy Spirit Inspiration and the Cultures of Antiquity Multidisciplinary Perspectives (Ekstasis 5 BerlinNew York De Gruyter 2014)

As a result of such experiences of closeness to and participation in the divinehuman beings are transformed⁵ These two fundamental characteristics of mys-ticism (ie the beholding of God and the resulting transformation) will guideour investigation of Philo⁶ and Paul⁷ The specific contribution of this article

Klaus Scholtissek singles out cognitio dei experimentalis and unio distinctionis as the twoelements of Christian mysticism (ldquoMystik im Neuen Testament Exegetisch-theologische Bau-steine [I Teil]rdquo GuL 75 [2002] 284ndash86) On ldquounion with Godrdquo in Philo cf note 24 belowWhileConstantine Campbell somewhat narrowly identifies Pauline mysticism (only) as union withChrist (Paul and Union With Christ An Exegetical and Theological Study [Grand Rapids MIZondervan 2012] 59ndash60) Theissen notes five aspects that should be taken into account whendealing with mystical texts in general

Erstens die religioumlse Erfahrung zweitens die literarische Form in die sie transformiertwurde drittens die Gemeinschaft in der Mystik gepflegt wird viertens die in ihr lebendenmystischen Traditionen Entscheidend aber ist der fuumlnfte Aspekt Wie wird mystischesErleben in der Theologie gedeutet Wird die Beziehung zu Gott als Begegnung Ver-

bundenheit oder Vereinigung verstanden hellip [Z]ielt Mystik auf Erneuerung der Person oderEntleerung des Ichs von allem hellip All das sind Deutungen (Theissen ldquoPaulus und dieMystikrdquo 265)

On ldquomysticismrdquo in Philo see further Hans Leisegang Der Heilige Geist Das Wesen und Werdender mystisch-intuitiven Erkenntnis in der Philosophie und Religion der Griechen I1 Die vor-christlichen Anschauungen und Lehren vom ΠΝΕΥΜΑ und der mystisch-intuitiven Erkenntnis(Leipzig Teubner 1919) Erwin R Goodenough By Light Light The Mystic Gospel of HellenisticJudaism (OxfordNew Haven CT Oxford University PressYale University Press 1935) DavidWinston Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati OH Hebrew UnionCollege Press 1985) David Winston ldquoPhilorsquos Mysticismrdquo SPA 8 (1996) 74ndash82 Christian NoackGottesbewuszligtsein Exegetische Studien zur Soteriologie und Mystik bei Philo von AlexandriaWUNT II116 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2000) Scott D Mackie ldquoSeeing God in Philo of Ale-xandria Means Methods and Mysticismrdquo JSJ 43 (2012) 147ndash79 For further definitions and discussions of Pauline mysticism see Adolf Deissmann Paul AStudy in Social and Religious History (London Hodder amp Stoughton 1926) 149 152 Kurt DeiszlignerPaulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit (LeipzigErlangen Deichertrsquosche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1921)122ndash23 127 136ndash38 Albert Schweitzer The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (London Black 1953)Alfred Wikenhauser Pauline Mysticism Christ in the Mystical Teaching of St Paul (FreiburgEdinburgh HerderNelson 1960) C Kourie ldquoChrist-Mysticism in Paulrdquo The Way Supplement102 (2001) 71ndash72 Ulrich Luz ldquoPaul as Mysticrdquo In The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins Essays inHonor of James D G Dunn eds G Stanton B W Longenecker and S C Barton (Grand RapidsMICambridge Eerdmans 2004) 131ndash43 As ldquomysticismrdquo is a category used for the study ofvarious religions it is not necessary to follow those who think that one should drop the termaltogether in Pauline studies because of the various definitions that have been suggested (thushowever Ernst Kaumlsemann Commentary on Romans [London SCM Press 1980] 220ndash21 E PSanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism [London SCM Press 1977] 435n19 et al and mostrecently Emmanuel L Rehfeld Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus Die ontische Wirksamkeit derChristusbezogenheit im Denken des HeidenapostelsWUNT II326 [Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2012]

294 Volker Rabens

will be to elucidate the role of πνεῦμα in the context of the mystical theology ofthese two key thinkers of antiquityWhile previous studies have discovered someparallels between the pneumatology of the Jewish-Christian apostle to the Gen-tiles and that of the Jewish philosopher from Alexandria⁸ this article will fromthe perspective of both authors uncover the work of the Spirit in the context ofthe notions of mystical beholding of the divine (esp in parts 1 amp 3) In the courseof this investigation we will also discuss whether the concept of theosis or dei-fication was an integral part of their respective mysticisms (esp parts 2 amp 3)

Why should students of Paul who are interested in his view of the mysticalwork of the Spirit want to read Philo of Alexandria The claim of this essay is notthat the former is necessarily dependent on the latter Nonetheless together withother strands of Jewish-Hellenistic and Greco-Roman literature the writings ofPhilo functioned as intertexts that formed part of the horizon of interpretationof Paul and his readers⁹ This is true for various shades of the apostlersquostheologysup1⁰ The following two examples demonstrate on both lexical and concep-tual grounds that this applies in particular to some key features of Paulrsquos pneu-matology

For one Paul calls the Spirit that believers receive the ldquoSpirit of adoption assonsrdquo (πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας) Through this Spirit they cry ldquoAbba Fatherrdquo (Rom 815Gal 46) The Spirit thus creates and expresses filial intimacy with Godmdasha themethat clearly qualifies as belonging to Paulrsquos ldquomysticalrdquo theologysup1sup1 This intimacyof the parent-child relationship is evidently drawn out by Philo when he de-

45 351 who prefers to return to the term ldquoChristus-Innigkeitrdquo suggested 100 years ago by Deissmann) See eg Finny Philip The Origins of Pauline Pneumatology The Eschatological Bestowal of the Spirit upon Gentiles in Judaism and in the Early Development of Paulrsquos Theology WUNT II194 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2005) 100 ndash 18 On this approach to intertextuality cf James H Charlesworth ldquoThe Odes of Solomon and the Jewish Wisdom Textsrdquo In The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought eds C Hempel A Lange and H Lichtenberger BETL 159 (Leuven Leuven University PressPeeters 2002) 328 ndash 29 Methodologically speaking one needs to oscillate between look-ing at Paul and at the potential religious contexts of his theology in order to find out whether he may have adopted one strand in particular In this manner one avoids projecting the concepts of one particular philosophy on Paul on the one hand and interpreting Paul in isolation from his historical context on the other hand Cf the studies mentioned in note 2 On the centrality of the motif of adoption for Paulrsquos soteriology and eschatology see Trevor J Burke Adopted into Godrsquos Family Exploring a Pauline Metaphor NSBT 22 (Downers Grove IL IVP 2006) Volker Rabens ldquolsquoSchon jetztrsquo und lsquonoch mehrrsquo Gegenwart und Zukunft des Heils bei Paulus und in seinen Gemeindenrdquo JBTh 28 (2013) 103 ndash 28

Pneuma and the Beholding of God 295

scribes this bond as being characterized by love and affectionsup1sup2 Moreover he ap-plies these features to the divine-human relationship which is the relationshipthat Paul deals with in Galatians 4 and Romans 8While the very term υἱοθεσίαis generally not used in Jewish literature Philo is nonetheless a precursor of Paulin employing the concept metaphorically in De Sobrietate 55ndash56sup1sup3 There he ex-plicitly links the theme of divine sonship to the motif of adoptionsup1⁴ Philo praisesthe closeness to God that is able to call God ldquosavior and benefactorrdquo rather thanonly ldquomaster or lordrdquo

For wisdom is rather Godrsquos friend than His servantsup1⁵ And therefore He says plainly of Abra-ham ldquoshall I hide anything from Abraham My friendrdquo (Gen xviii 17) But he who has thisportion has passed beyond the bounds of human happiness He alone is nobly born for hehas registered God as his father and become by adoption His only son the possessor not ofriches but of all richeshellip (Sobr 55ndash56)

When reading Philorsquos treatment of the parent-child relationship on the other hand one mayinitially get the impression that he is only concerned with duties However he provides hisreaders with a hermeneutical key explaining that this is due to the fact that the legal texts whichhe exegetes presuppose rather than explicitly mention the affective love of parents to theirchildren (see his reflections in Spec 2239ndash40) There is nonetheless sufficient proof thataffections played a pivotal role in Philorsquos understanding of the parent-child relationship (egSpec 2240 parents ldquoare fast bound to them [ie their children] by the magnetic forces ofaffectionrdquo cf 1137 2236 239 Abr 168ndash70 Ios 4) Reinhartz thus summarizes her research byaffirming ldquoit is clear that love and affection particularly of parents towards children wasconsidered by Philo to be hellip a very powerful aspect of parenthoodrdquo (ldquoParents and Children APhilonic Perspectiverdquo In The Jewish Family in Antiquity ed Shaye J D Cohen BJS 289 [AtlantaGA Scholars Press 1993] 81) The filial relationship between Yhwh and the people of Israel (both corporately and in-dividually) is a seam that runs deep in the Hebrew Bible as well as early Jewish literature (see eg Exod 422 Isa 436 Sir 5110 Tob 135 Jub 220 1929 LAB 165 T Job 402 T Levi 186 11ndash13) It is a relationship characterized by the love of Yhwh for his children (see eg Deut 3268ndash 14 Isa 638ndash10 16 Sir 410 4 Ezra 658 Pss Sol 183ndash4 Wis 1626) However it is Philo whouses the concept of ldquoadoptionrdquo in this regard On the identification of the person adopted see the discussion in James M Scott Adoptionas Sons of God An Exegetical Investigation into the Background of ΥΙΟΘΕΣΙΑ in the PaulineCorpus WUNT II48 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1992) 89 esp note 137 On the religious back-ground of Sobr 55ndash56 see Scott Adoption 89ndash96 More generally on Philorsquos concept of relatingto God as a father see eg QE 23 Conf 145 The alternative translation by C D Yonge The Works of Philo (Peabody MA Hendrickson1995) is linguistically possible too ldquoFor what is wise is dearer to God than what is slavishrdquoUnless indicated otherwise this article utilizes the translation of the Loeb Classical Libraryedition of Philo

296 Volker Rabens

Being adopted (εἰσποιητός) is here seen as an equivalent to being a friend of Godin whom he confides his thoughts and (secret) plans God has become a father toAbraham and Abraham enjoys the privileges of being his only son who shares inall Godrsquos riches and goods (56) This state of being adopted as a son is presentedas one of extreme happiness and the human reaction is praise and worship ofthe heavenly Father (58)We will see in more detail in part 1 that in Quaestioneset Solutiones in Exodum 229 Philo describes the effects of Spirit-worked ldquocomingnear God in a kind of family relationrdquo as a religious-ethicalsup1⁶ transformation thatresults in further closeness and likeness with GodWe thus find in Philo the keyelements of Paulrsquos argument in Romans 812ndash17 adoption and sonship of Godan intimate relationship with God religious-ethical transformation and the ac-tivity Spirit Our thesis that Philorsquos mystical theology provides a religious contextfor Paulrsquos presentation of the work of πνεῦμα in believers hence finds supportwhen we look at the connection of filial intimacy adoption and the Spirit inboth authorssup1⁷

The second example namely 2Corinthians 3 (focusing on v 18) also con-firms that Philorsquos mysticism forms part of the context of Paulrsquos pneumatologyHowever in the case of 2Corinthians 318 studying Philo can actually helpsolve some of the interpretative riddles of this debated text 2Corinthians 3and verse 18 in particular has been called ldquothe Mount Everest of Pauline textsas far as difficulty is concernedhellip rdquosup1⁸ In 2Corinthians 3 Paul compares his min-istry with that of Moses and concludes in verse 18 ldquoAnd we all with unveiledface beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror are being transformedinto the same image from one glory to another for this comes from the Lordthe Spiritrdquo Many who have tried to grasp the nuances of Paulrsquos argument inthis passage have at times felt that they themselves have a veil over their

This article adopts a broad concept of ldquoethicsrdquo in accordance with Schragersquos definition ofNew Testament ethics as ldquothe question of what was the enabling and grounds the criteria andcontent of the early Christian way of acting and livingrdquo (Wolfgang Schrage Ethik des NeuenTestaments [GNTNTD 4 Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1989] 9) As a grouprsquos religiouslife and ethical conduct are interrelated I use the slightly broader term ldquoreligious-ethicalrdquo moreor less synonymously with ldquoethicalrdquo Both terms refer to the quality of personal and communallife before God In this case Paul seems to advance the shared convictions of both authors by introducingthe concept of πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας (developed on the basis of the Christological character of hispneumatology cf eg πνεῦμα Χριστοῦπνεῦμα τοῦ υἱου Rom 89Gal 46) thus linkingadoption explicitly to the Spirit A T Hanson ldquoThe Midrash in II Corinthians 3 A Reconsiderationrdquo JSNT 9 (1980) 19 citedwith consent by David E Garland ldquoThe Sufficiency of Paul Minister of the New Covenantrdquo CTR4 (1989) 21


minds It would hence be presumptuous to assume that this article will be ableto lift the veil entirely Nonetheless in the context of our comparison of the workof the Spirit in Philo and Paul we will see that reading Paul in the context ofPhilonic mystical traditions has the potential of further lifting the veil

One particular reason for utilizing Philo for the interpretation of the conceptof mystical beholding of the divine through the agency of the Spirit in 2Corinthi-ans 318 is the fact that Philo is the only author in Paulrsquos religious environmentwho in a similar context uses the most enigmatic expression of our text namelythe participle κατοπτριζόμενοι (ldquothose beholding as in a mirrorrdquo) This biblicalhapax legomenon is employed by Philo when he describes Mosesrsquo desire to en-counter Godsup1⁹ Philo thus draws on the very textual tradition (Exod 33 etc)and the very theme that Paul deals with in 2Corinthians 3 In Legum allegoriarum3101 Philo reports Moses as saying to God that he does not want to see himmerely through the medium of heaven earth air or any other created thingsldquonor would I behold as in a mirror (κατοπτρισαίμην) your form (σὴν ἰδέαν) in any-thing else than in you who are Godrdquo (Leg 3101 my translation) Philo thuspraises Mosesrsquo desire to encounter God directly and not a ldquoin a looking-glassrdquo(Yonge) or ldquoreflectionrdquo (LCL) (cf 1Cor 1312 ldquonow we see in a mirror dimly [δι᾽ἐσόπτρου ἐν αἰνίγματι] but then we will see face to facerdquo)sup2⁰

Next to this striking verbatim parallel to 2Corinthians 318 several Philonicpassages evidence a close thematic connection of (1) the work of the Spirit thatenables (2) an intimate mystical beholding of God that leads to (3) a trans-formed virtuous life It is these passages that will be the focus of the next sec-tion because the same elements are also key to the Spirit-inspired mystical be-holding of and assimilation to the divine described in 2Corinthians 318

For the employment of the term in other contexts see Aeschylus Ag 839 (of the magicmirror in Paus 72112) Artemidorus Daldianus Onir 27 (Gerhard Kittel ldquoκατοπτρίζομαιrdquo TDNT2696) On Leg 3101 see further Meier Mystik 88ndash90 M David Litwa ldquoTransformation through aMirror Moses in 2 Cor 318rdquo JSNT 34 (2012) 292 On the different notions of the mirror images in1Cor 1312 and 2Cor 318 see Volker Rabens The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul Transformationand Empowering for Religious-Ethical LifeWUNT II283 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2013) 179ndash81

298 Volker Rabens

gr00vebox
Typewritten Text
--

1 Pneuma and the Beholding of God in Philo

Philo is considered a representative of early Judaism who advocated a mysticaltheology And with good reasonsup2sup1 The intimate experience of ldquothe One whoIsrdquo is of paramount importance for the Jewish philosopher from Alexandria See-ing God constitutes the pinnacle of Philorsquos contemplative spiritual experienceHe considers it the ldquobeginning and end of human happinessrdquo (QE 251) andthe ldquomost precious of all possessionsrdquo (Legat 4) Noack points out that ldquoas anexegete Philo is doing a theology of experience [Erfahrungstheologie] in whichhe searches for pathways to the transforming experience of the presence ofGodrdquosup2sup2 This focus can be clearly seen in Philorsquos interaction with the Moses tra-dition which is central to 2Corinthians 318 Interpreting Deuteronomy 3020sup2sup3

Philo emphasizes the love of God and the effects of what one may call a mysticalunionsup2⁴ with God in the following way

Cf the studies mentioned in note 6 above and note 22 below See also the longer treatment ofPhilorsquos pneumatology in Rabens Spirit 149ndash55 on which the present section builds Noack Gottesbewuszligtsein 247 See also Wilhelm Bousset Kyrios Christos A History of theBelief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (New York Abingdon 1970) 226David Winston ldquoPhilorsquos Ethical Theoryrdquo ANRW II211372ndash77 Cf David M Hay ldquoPhilo of Ale-xandriardquo In Justification and Variegated Nomism vol 1 of The Complexities of Second TempleJudaism eds D A Carson Peter OrsquoBrien and Mark A Seifrid WUNT II140 (Tuumlbingen MohrSiebeck 2001) 366 ldquoThe lsquopsychologyrsquo that matters to Philo is an understanding of the soul ofthe individual in relation to Godrdquo One can assume that this psychology is not ldquoreine Schreib-tischmystikrdquo but is grounded in Philorsquos own experience See Theissen ldquoPaulus und die Mystikrdquo278 building on Spec 31ndash6 Mackie ldquoSeeing Godrdquo 173ndash74 building on Migr 34ndash35 andCher 27 and John R Levison ldquoPhilorsquos Personal Experience and the Persistence of Prophecyrdquo InProphets Prophecy and Prophetic Texts in Second Temple Judaism eds Michael H Floyd andRobert D Haak LHBOTS 427 (New YorkLondon TampT Clark 2006) 194ndash209 building onnumerous other texts Deut 3020 ldquoChoose life so that you and your descendants may live loving the LORD yourGod obeying him and holding fast to him for that means life to you and length of dayshellip rdquo Philorsquos notion of mystical union should not be confused with that of the mystery cults (whichtends to amount to ldquofusionrdquo with the divine) that Pascher anachronistically ascribes to Philo(Joseph Pascher Η ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ ΟΔΟΣ Der Koumlnigsweg zu Wiedergeburt und Vergottung bei Philonvon Alexandreia SGKA 17ndash34 [Paderborn Schoumlningh 1931] 164ndash67 177 183) Contrary to somepopular opinions mysticism does not necessarily imply a unio mystica in which the distinctionbetween God and human is fully overcome cf Elliot RWolfson ldquoVarieties of Jewish MysticismA Typological Analysisrdquo In Mysticism and the Mystical Experience East and West ed Donald HBishop (SelinsgroveLondon Susquehanna Universitoy PressAssociated University Presses1995) 137 Scholtissek ldquoMystikrdquo 284ndash85


Moses hellip bids them [ie the Israelites] ldquocleave to Himrdquo bringing out by the use of this wordhow constant and continuous and unbroken is the concord and union that comes throughmaking God our ownhellip But so unceasingly does he [ie Moses] himself yearn to see Godand to be seen by Him that he implores Him to reveal clearly His own nature (Exodxxxiii 13) which is so hard to divine hoping thus to obtain at length a view free fromall falsehoodsup2⁵ and to exchange doubt and uncertainty for a most assured confidence(Post 12ndash 13)sup2⁶

Philo explains here that a firm faith (βεβαιοτάτην πίστιν) will be the result of theintimate encounter of ldquoseeing God and being seen by Himrdquo The theme of Mosesseeing and encountering God which is central to this and other passages inPhilo (Post 16 Leg 3101 Spec 141 cf Mut 8 et al)sup2⁷ of course also plays akey role in 2Corinthians 3 where Paul speaks about seeing the glory of theLord as if reflected in a mirror Both Philo and Paul attest that this encountermakes a difference in the beholder a ldquofirm faithrdquo is the result in Philorsquos accountof Moses while for Paul it brings about ldquobeing transformed into the same imagefrom one degree of glory to anotherrdquo

Another Philonic parallel to the Spirit-inspired contemplation of the divinein 2Corinthians 318 is De Migratione Abrahami 34ndash36 There Philo speaksabout his state of divine inspiration during which he is

filled with amazement at the might of Him that is to Whom is due the opening and closingof the soul-wombsrdquo He explains ldquoNow the thing shewn is the thing worthy to be seen[Yonge beheld] contemplated loved the perfect good whose nature it is to change allthat is bitter in the soul and make it sweet fairest seasoning of all spices turning into sa-lutary nourishment even foods that do not nourish hellip (Ex xv 25)rdquo (Migr 36)

Colson and Whitaker (LCL) translate ἵν᾽ ἤδη ποτὲ ἀψευδοῦς δόξης μεταλαβὼν (Post 13) asldquohoping thus to obtain at length a view free from all falsehoodrdquo This translation coheres bothwith the Moses-tradition in Exod 3313 which is referred to by Philo (cf 3318 ldquoMoses saidlsquoShow me your glory I prayrsquordquo LXX καὶ λέγει δεῖξόν μοι τὴν σεαυτοῦ δόξαν) and 2Cor 318However it is also possible to translate δόξα in Post 13 as ldquoopinionrdquo (thus Leisegangrsquos trans-lation in Leopold Cohn Die Werke Philos von Alexandria in deutscher Uumlbersetzung [Berlin DeGruyter 1962] 8ndash9 ldquodamit er der sich schon vorher eine untruumlgliche Meinung gebildet hattefuumlr unsicheres Schwanken sichersten Glauben eintauschterdquo) On this rendering of δόξα Philocould perhaps be alluding to Platorsquos analogy of the divided line in which δόξα and πίστις featureas key terms (Resp 6509Dndash513E) The italics in the quotations from Philo highlight particularly strong (verbal) parallels to themystical tradition in 2Cor 318 On the human longing for an intimate relationship with God see also Opif 70ndash71 Ebr 152et al

300 Volker Rabens

Here we see that beholding and contemplating God leads to a transformation(ldquochangerdquo) and empowering (ldquonourishmentrdquo) of the soul This thought is also ex-pressed in De Legatione ad Gaium 4ndash5 where Philo puts forward that

hellip ldquoseeing Godrdquo seems to me of all possessions public or private the most precious For ifthe sight of seniors or instructors or rulers or parents stirs the beholders to respect for themand decent behaviour and the desire to live a life of self-control how firmly based is thevirtue and nobility of conduct which we may expect to find in souls whose vision hassoared above all created things and schooled itself to behold the uncreated and divinethe primal good the excellent the happy the blessed which may truly be called betterthan the good more excellent than the excellent more blessed than blessedness morehappy than happiness itself (Legat 4ndash5)

The impact of an intimate encounter with God is thus attested as ldquofirmly based hellip

virtue and nobility of conductrdquo In Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum 27 Philofinds a way to describe figuratively how such a religious-ethical transformationhappens ldquojust as one who comes near the light is straightaway illumined soalso is filled the entire soul of him to whom God has appearedrdquo (cf Gig 49QG 425) Philo here speaks of Godrsquos empowering presence as the motor ofchange in a person (rather than ldquomererdquo moral obligation) Knowledge and wis-dom are central agents in this process aiming at the personrsquos being ldquofull ofevery goodrdquo (QE 27)

Thus far we have clearly seen that the two aspects of mysticism that we alsofind in 2Corinthians 318mdashie vision (or intimate encounter) of God and transfor-mation of the human beingmdashare of great significance to Philosup2⁸ That Philo pres-ents both aspects as related to the work of the Spiritmdashas does Paul in 2Corinthi-ans 318mdashis of great importance for our comparison of these two authors (seealso our first example above Rom 812ndash 17)sup2⁹ In light of this connection Philorsquos

Numerous further passages could be discussed as evidence of the former resulting in thelatter for example Gig 49 QG 44 29 140 Contempl 90 Migr 132 Plant 64ndash66 Deus 3ndash4Her 70ndash71 Praem 41ndash48 Abr 58ndash59 Leg 371 Cher 24 50 Somn 1149 2232 Fug 82Virt 163ndash64 181 215ndash16 218 cf Mos 1156 It should be noted that some of these passagesimply that ethical living can also be a presupposition for seeing God However Philo generallyportrays God as the initiator of a transformed moral life Cf Walther Voumllker Fortschritt undVollendung bei Philo von Alexandrien Eine Studie zur Geschichte der Froumlmmigkeit TU 411(Leipzig Hinrichs 1938) 302ndash03 Barclay ldquoGrace of Godrdquo 141ndash48 Volker Rabens ldquoPhilorsquosAttractive Ethics on the lsquoReligious Marketrsquo of Ancient Alexandriardquo In Religions and TradeReligious Formation Transformation and Cross-Cultural Exchange between East and West edsPeter Wick and Volker Rabens DHR 5 (Leiden Brill 2014) 341ndash50 First of all the Spirit relates humans to God Cornelis Bennema explains ldquoThe mind ordivine πνεῦμα constitutes a union between man and God (Leg All 137) and provides the basis ofknowing God the means of a relationship with God (Plant 18 Leg All 133ndash34 37ndash38)rdquo (The


interpretations of Mosesrsquo endowment with the prophetic Spirit will now be con-sidered in detail The following passages provide a close religious context for2Corinthians 318 where transformation is also based on an intimate encounterwith the divine which is worked by the Spirit In these texts Philo like Paulexplores the experience of Mosesrsquo encounter with God on Mount Horeb as it isrelated in the Pentateuch In Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum 229 Philo in-terprets Exodus 242 (ldquoMoses alone shall come near the LORD but the othersshall not come near and the people shall not come up with himrdquo) and says

For when the prophetic mind becomes divinely inspired and filled with God (ἐνθουσιᾷ καὶθεοφορεῖται) it becomes like the monad not being at all mixed with any of those thingsassociated with duality But he who is resolved into the nature of unity is said to comenear God in a kind of family relation ldquofor having given up and left behind all mortalkindsrdquo he is changed into the divine so that such men become kin to God and truly divine(QE 229)

ldquoDivine inspiration and filling with Godrdquo (ἐνθουσιᾷ καὶ θεοφορεῖται) implies thepresence and work of the Spirit which is also suggested by Philorsquos interpretationof the same experience of Moses in De Vita Mosis 1175 Moses ldquobecame pos-sessed hellip and hellip filled with the spirit which was wont to visit himrdquo (ἔνθους γίνε-ται καταπνευσθεὶς ὑπὸ τοῦ εἰωθότος ἐπιφοιτᾶν αὐτῷ πνεύματος cf Virt 217 etal) Philo elucidates in Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum 229 how such a pos-session leads to religious-ethical transformation (becoming like the monad)sup3⁰

intimacy and closeness to God (coming near God in a kind of family relation)sup3sup1

and how this results in the personrsquos further (religious-ethical) transformation(becoming kin to God and truly divine)

A similar effect of inspiration and contemplation is portrayed in De VitaMosis 269 To begin with the inspiration is not explicitly connected with πνεῦμα(cf Yongersquos more literal translation ldquohe began to prophesy and to feel a divine

Power of Saving Wisdom An Investigation of Spirit and Wisdom in Relation to the Soteriology ofthe Fourth Gospel WUNT II148 [Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2002] 73 cf 74ndash77 82 cf Marie EIsaacs The Concept of the Spirit A Study of Pneuma in Hellenistic Judaism and its Bearing on theNew Testament [London Heythrop Monographs 1976] 57 Folker Siegert Philon von Alexan-drien Uumlber die Gottesbezeichnung ldquowohltaumltig verzehrendes Feuerrdquo [De Deo]WUNT 46 [TuumlbingenMohr Siebeck 1988] 88) Likewise Philo clearly relates the Spirit to the furtherance of religious-ethical life (egMos 2265 Gig 23 28 47 Mut 123ndash24 Leg 133ndash34 QG 4140 cf the passagesdiscussed above) On the term ldquomonadrdquo in Philo see Noack Gottesbewuszligtsein 132ndash41 Cf A J M Wedderburn Baptism and Resurrection Studies in Pauline Theology against itsGraeco-Roman Background WUNT 44 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1987) 283 Noack Gottes-bewuszligtsein 147

302 Volker Rabens

inspirationrdquo whereas Colson [LCL] translates ldquopossessed by the spirit he en-tered his work as a prophetrdquo) Nonetheless the Spirit is implied by Philowhen he later on in the same paragraph uses the term καταπνεόμενος for the in-spiration How closely the inspiration by the Spirit (καταπνεόμενος) and the be-holding of God (θεωρία) are connected is evident from the fact that it is difficultto decide whether they have a (sequential) relationship of cause and effect andwhether only one or both of them are responsible for the change in Moses How-ever it is clear that the three elements of our model of the mystical work of theSpirit are also present in this passage inspiration by the Spirit an intimate en-counter with God and advancement of strength and well-being of the mind orsoul (and body) that is transformationsup3sup2

A final text of Philorsquos interpretation of Mosesrsquo mystical endowment with theSpirit namely De Gigantibus 54ndash55 provides further evidence for the above-mentioned triad When Moses begins to worship God (by the aid of the Spiritcf sect53) he enters the darkness the invisible region and he abides there

while he learns the secrets of the most holy mysteries There he becomes not only one of thecongregation of the initiated but also the hierophant and teacher of divine rites which hewill impart to those whose ears are purified He then has ever the divine spirit at his side

taking the lead in every journey of righteousness (Gig 54ndash55)

This passage suggests that in mystical encounters with God the divine Spirit isactive and experienced as a guide ldquoin every journey of righteousnessrdquo In thisconnection it appears that the intimacy of worship not only leads (by meansof the Spirit) to ethical transformation in a narrow sense but also encompassesan empowering for ministry (teaching divine truths on which cf Somn 2252ndash53)

We can conclude our investigation of the work of the Spirit in Philorsquos mysti-cal theology by drawing attention to the ldquoethicalrdquo character of the transforma-tion which is the result of the Spirit-enabled beholding of God Philo praisesthe desire to behold God and he takes Mosesmdashparticularly Mosesrsquo encounterwith God on Mount Horebmdashas the model for this Spirit-induced experience ofthe divine It seems that neither the (visual) encounter itself nor its effectscould be reduced to a mere impartation of cognitive insights Rather the entirereligious-ethical life of the believer is transformed In part 3 we will see how this

On ldquogrowing in gracerdquo of the body as well as the question whether the transformation wastemporal or permanent see Rabens Spirit 74ndash77 On Mosesrsquo special place in Philo see WayneA Meeks The Prophet-King Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology NovTSup 14 (LeidenBrill 1967) 100ndash31


emphasis provides a fruitful context of interpretation for the debated 2Corinthi-ans 318

2 Pneuma and Mystical Transformation

as ldquoDeificationrdquo in Philo and Paul

In our analysis of the work of Philo we have seen that the transformation thatresults from mystical Spirit-enabled beholding of God can be accurately descri-bed as ldquoreligious-ethicalrdquosup3sup3 However the history of scholarship provides variousviewing angles from which this religious-ethical transformation can be lookedat One of these perspectives is that of ldquodeificationrdquo which has been suggestedby a number of scholars for both Philo and Paulsup3⁴ Deification is a typical com-ponent of a number of strands of Jewish mysticismsup3⁵ We have already comeacross deification in one of our sample passages from Philo He explicitly usesdeification-terminology in Quaestiones et Solutiones in Exodum 229 where hesays that ldquoMoses abandoned the world of multiplicity and was resolved intothe nature of unity and changed into the divinerdquosup3⁶ How should we understandthis notion of deification in Philo Building on the work of Carl Holladay andothers Richard Bauckham has recently provided new support for the viewthat a closer look at the relevant texts (particularly those available in Greekas Prob 42ndash44 Mos 1155ndash58 often commenting on Exod 71) reveals that

Cf the definition of ldquoreligious-ethicalrdquo in note 16 above This conceptualization has been suggest eg by Pascher ΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ ΟΔΟΣ Peter SchaumlferThe Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2009) ch 5 M David Litwa We AreBeing Transformed Deification in Paulrsquos Soteriology BZNW 187 (Berlin De Gruyter 2012) on bothPhilo and Paul on Paul see Stephen Finlan ldquoCan We Speak of Theosis in Paulrdquo In Partakers ofthe Divine Nature The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions edsMichael J Christensen and Jeffery AWittung (Grand Rapids MI Baker Academic 2007) 68ndash80Michael J Gorman Inhabiting the Cruciform God Kenosis Justification and Theosis in PaulrsquosNarrative Soteriology (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2009) See Wolfson ldquoVarieties of Jewish Mysticismrdquo 137 Schaumlfer thinks that we can hence speak of Moses becoming transformed ldquointo a divineessencerdquo (Schaumlfer Origins 174) Thus also Litwa (Being Transformed 106ndash08) who says thatMoses is transformed ldquointo divine substancerdquo On the basis ofMos 2288 (which however refersto Mosesrsquo immortalization at the end of his life) Litwa explains that this divine substance isldquomindrdquo (νοῦς) Since Philo interprets νοῦς as πνεῦμα in Fug 1134 and Somn 130ndash33 he feelsjustified to continue his argument that ldquoThis pneuma was widely considered to be a divinesubstance which the Stoics called lsquocreative firersquo (πῦρ τεχνικόν) This it appears is what Moseswas turned into This is what it meant for Moses to be lsquochanged into the divinersquordquo

304 Volker Rabens

Philo conceptualizes the consequences of mystical encounters with God as tem-poral changesup3⁷ Philo does not present humans as literally taking on Godrsquos verynature The word ldquogodrdquo is thus used in an analogical sense indicating ways inwhich a virtuous human can imperfectly reflect the virtues of God According toBauckham ldquowhenever Philo takes the text to refer to humans he thinks of theStoic ideal of the wise and virtuous man who is king not in the ordinary sense ofthe ruler of a state or nation but in the sense of ethical superiority over others orin the sense also ethical of being in control of his passionsrdquosup3⁸ The currentchange is not portrayed as making Moses ldquodivinerdquo in the sense of being equalto God (based on the infusion with a physical πνεῦμα-substance as somewould argue)sup3⁹ but should rather be understood as transformation into ldquoa virtu-ous manrdquo⁴⁰ Bauckham concludes that only at the end of his life will Moses betruly ldquomigratedrdquo to the divine realm (Mos 2288 etc)⁴sup1

Is it sensible then to apply the concept of deification or theosis in the con-text of mystical transformation to Paul It has become somewhat popular insome strands of recent (Western) scholarship on Paul to give a positive answerto this question⁴sup2 Proceeding from our brief discussion of deification in Philo

Richard Bauckham ldquoMoses as lsquoGodrsquo in Philo of Alexandria A Precedent for Christologyrdquo InThe Spirit and Christ in the New Testament and Christian Theology Essays in Honor of Max Turnereds I Howard Marshall Volker Rabens and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans2012) 246ndash65 Carl R Holladay Theios Aner in Hellenistic Judaism A Critique of the Use of ThisCategory in New Testament Christology SBLDS (Missoula MT Scholars Press 1977) 108ndash63 CfWendy E Hellemann ldquoPhilo of Alexandria on Deification and Assimilation to Godrdquo SPA 2(1990) 70ndash71 Litwa Being Transformed 106 ldquoThis temporary lsquochange into the divinersquo fores-hadowed the more permanent change at the end of Mosesrsquo liferdquo Bauckham ldquoMosesrdquo 255 Cf George H van Kooten Paulrsquos Anthropology in Context TheImage of God Assimilation to God and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism Ancient Philosophy andEarly Christianity WUNT 232 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2008) 188 Cf Rabens Spirit 67ndash78 pace the scholars mentioned there The judgment that Philoconceives of the divine Spirit as immaterial has recently been supported by Matthew EdwardsPneuma and Realized Eschatology in the Book of Wisdom FRLANT 242 (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeckamp Ruprecht 2012) 125ndash26 Paul however does not address this issue nor evidently presupposea particular (im)material nature of πνεῦμα as we will see below See eg Opif 144 Cf van Kooten Anthropology 188 Bauckham ldquoMosesrdquo 249ndash57 See note 34 above This development came as a positive surprise for some of the participantsof the dialogue at the sixth conference organized by the Studiorum Novi Testamenti SocietasrsquoEastern Europe Liaison Committee held in Belgrade (25ndash31 August 2013) where we have dis-cussed ldquoThe Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testamentrdquo from ldquoEasternrdquo andldquoWesternrdquo perspectives (see the forthcoming volume edited by Predrag Dragutinovic ChristosKarakolis and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr in Mohr Siebeckrsquos WUNT series) This surprise is of coursedue to the fact that much of protestant theology has resisted any notion of divinization being


we will now look at this issue more generally from the perspective of Paulrsquospneumatology and we will then return to it in the context of our more specificdiscussion of 2Corinthians 318 in part 3 In order to decide whether applying theconcept of deification to mystical transformation by the Spirit in Paul will pro-vide us with the surplus of deeper understanding of the apostle that seems tobe suggested by recent scholarship it is necessary to determinemdashat least provi-sionallymdashwhat we mean by ldquodeificationrdquo In his 2011 monograph Christosis Pau-line Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril of Alexandria BenBlackwell distinguishes two ways of understanding deification in the ancientworld memorialcultic (as in the apotheosis of heroes and emperors) and onto-logical deification The latter category is the more dominant one He divides itinto two different aspects an essential ontology and an attributive ontologyBlackwell explains

With essential deification the human shares ontologically in the essence of the divine orrather they contain a divine element within themselveshellip Those proposing attributive de-ification maintain that humans remain ontologically separate from the divine primarily dueto a distinction between the Creator and the created but humans are ontologically changedas they share in particular divine attributes such as immortality⁴sup3

How may this terminological differentiation relate to our investigation of themystical work of the Spirit in Paul Blackwell puts forward that

one distinction between essential-transformational deification and attributive deification isthe nature of pneumaWith essential-transformational deification the pneuma is the divinematerial in which believers come to share and by which they are constituted In contrastattributive deification maintains the agency of the Spirit as one who mediates the divinepresence and thus always remains distinct from believers who nonetheless come to takeon a pneumatic body through the relationship⁴⁴

Blackwell provides two examples for these two lines of interpretation

While not characterising their discussion as deification the contrast between essential-transformative and attributive deification directly parallels the distinction of the role ofpneuma in Troels Engberg-Pedersen Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul The Material

fearful of ecclesial triumphalism etc However as Wright has recently commented ldquoit is hard tosee that one can simultaneously speak of the spiritrsquos indwelling and refuse to speak of divini-zationrdquo [N TWright Paul and the Faithfulness of God Christian Origins and the Question of God4 (Minneapolis MA Fortress 2013] 546 cf 1021ndash23) Ben C Blackwell Christosis Pauline Soteriology in Light of Deification in Irenaeus and Cyril ofAlexandria WUNT II314 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2011) 104 italics added Cf note 24 above Blackwell Christosis 104

306 Volker Rabens

Spirit (hellip 2010) and Volker Rabens The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul Transformation andEmpowering for Religious-Ethical Life (hellip 2010)⁴⁵

Blackwellrsquos terminological distinction between these two types of ontological de-ification can be helpful as long as one remembers that these are not the catego-ries of Philo or Paul At the most they may be used as a heuristic tool that marksa spectrum of possible interpretations of the larger category of ontological trans-formation In the remainder of this section we will briefly look at the former ap-proach to Paulrsquos pneumatology which Blackwell identifies as essential-transfor-mational deification and which I have called infusion-transformation⁴⁶ My ownapproach which Blackwell categorizes as attributive deification conceptualizesthe work of the Spirit in Paul as relational transformation It should be noted atthe outset that ldquorelationalrdquo means neither ldquometaphoricalrdquo⁴⁷ nor ldquonotontologicalrdquo⁴⁸ Paulrsquos thinking moves beyond these false adjacency pairs⁴⁹ Myapproach is built upon the recognition that relationships are fundamental to

Blackwell Christosis 104n13 See the full discussion in Rabens Spirit 18ndash 120 It is somewhat confusing that Blackwell equates his category of ldquoattributive deificationrdquo withRusselrsquos category of ldquometaphorical deificationrdquo (Blackwell Christosis 102ndash 105 drawing onNorman Russell The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition [Oxford OxfordUniversity Press 2004] 1ndash3) Attributive deification is a subcategory of ontological deificationwhereas ldquometaphoricalrdquo may suggest to the majority of readers that the transformation is notontological On the parameters of interpretation of Spirit-metaphors see Rabens Spirit 43ndash54 With regard to the supposed opposition of a substance-ontological or a relational concept ofthe work of the Spirit in Paulrsquos ethics I build on Dunnrsquos insight regarding the effects of ju-stification-sanctification according to Paul He explains (The Theology of Paul the Apostle[Edinburgh TampT Clark 1998] 344) that ldquothe basic idea assumed by Paul was of a relationship inwhich God acts on behalf of his human partner first in calling Israel into and then in sustainingIsrael in its covenant with himhellip The covenant God counts the covenant partner as still inpartnership despite the latterrsquos continued failure But the covenant partner could hardly fail tobe transformed by a living relationship with the life-giving GodrdquoApplying this insight to the debated ontological frameworks of ethical renewal by the Spiritmeans to appreciate that the dominance of the (covenant) relationship of God with his people inPaulrsquos thinking rules out the ldquorelational-as-opposed-to-ontologicalrdquo approach to Paulrsquos theologyand anthropology that is evidenced by D S Dockery and others (ldquoNew Nature and Old NaturerdquoDPL 628 followed by James M Howard Paul the Community and Progressive Sanctification AnExploration into Community-Based Transformation within Pauline Theology SBL 90 [New YorkLang 2007] 81n61 cf Juumlrg Buchegger Erneuerung des Menschen Exegetische Studien zu PaulusTANZ 40 [Tuumlbingen Francke 2003] 295) Unfortunately my work has sometimes been (mis)read through these lenses See the prefaceto the second edition of Rabens Spirit vndashvii


onersquos being and have the power to change people for the worse or the better⁵⁰ Aswe will see in part 3 at the example of 2Corinthians 318 the mystical work of theSpirit builds on the centrality of transforming relationships In the context of thisdiscussion the notion of relational transformation will receive further differentia-tion in dialogue with the work of M David Litwa who argues in his 2012 mono-graph We Are Being Transformed Deification in Paulrsquos Soteriology that Paul isspeaking in 2Corinthians 318 about the (essential)⁵sup1 deification of believers bythe Spirit

The approach to the transforming work of the Spirit that Blackwell catego-rizes as ldquoessential deificationrdquo (although this is not the language that the follow-ing scholars use) has been championed in recent research by the work of Frie-drich W Horn and Troels Engberg-Pedersen⁵sup2 It can build on a long-standingscholarly tradition that argues that the religious-ethical life of believers derivesfrom an ontic change achieved by the infusion with divine πνεῦμα-substanceFor example Wrede for whom salvation ldquois an ontic transformation of humanity

Cf eg Robert A Hinde Towards Understanding Relationships EMSP 18 (London Aca-demic Press 1979) 4 14 273 326 John Bowlby A Secure Base Parent-Child Attachment andHealthy Human Development (New York Basic Books 1988) 119ndash36 Hugh LaFollette PersonalRelationships Love Identity and Morality (Oxford Blackwell 1996) 89ndash90 197ndash99 207ndash209Ludwig Stecher Die Wirkung sozialer Beziehungen Empirische Ergebnisse zur Bedeutung sozialenKapitals fuumlr die Entwicklung von Kindern und Jugendlichen (Munich Juventa 2001) 249ndash50Phillip R Shaver and Mario Mikulincer ldquoAttachment Theory Individual Psychodynamics andRelationship Functioningrdquo In The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships eds Anita LVangelisti and Daniel Perlman (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2006) 251ndash71 I have placed ldquoessentialrdquo in parentheses because Litwa rejects the categorizations of Russelland Blackwell He says that ldquoit is clear that both Russell and Blackwell are thinking in terms oflater patristic theology But later patristic theology is not determinative for Paulrdquo (Litwa BeingTransformed 9n18) Also Blackwell does not suggest that this was a conscious differentiationmade by the ancient authors (Blackwell Christosis 105)We should hence resist the temptationto force the ancient evidence into one of these categories Nonetheless we may still comparethese (patristic) categories with what we find in Philo and Paul in the same way as Litwa doeswith other (though mainly earlier) sources Litwa (Being Transformed 291) describes his methodas ldquohellip essentially eticViewing Paul from the outside I have pinpointed some analogies betweenhis eschatological ideas and other (chiefly Graeco-Roman) ideas which involve deificationBased on similarities I have then categorized an aspect of Paulrsquos soteriology (that involving thereception of immortal corporeality cosmic rule and Christic virtues) as a form of deificationhellip Paul hellip might resist my classification of aspects of his thought as a form of lsquodeificationrsquordquo Friedrich Wilhelm Horn Das Angeld des Geistes Studien zur paulinischen PneumatologieFRLANT 154 (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1992) 175 388 et al Troels Engberg-Pe-dersen Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul The Material Spirit (Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 2010) Cf M David Litwa Becoming Divine An Introduction to Deification in WesternCulture (Eugene OR Cascade 2013) 58ndash68

308 Volker Rabens

which produces ethical transformation as its resultrdquo explains that Paul ldquoappearsto understand him [the Spirit] as a heavenly substance that transforms thehuman being substantiallyrdquo⁵sup3 This view of the mystical work of the Spirit canbe called ldquoinfusion-transformationrdquo because it suggests that a material πνεῦ-μα-substance⁵⁴ is like a ldquofluidumrdquo poured into the believer On the basis of itsphysical nature the Spirit transforms the human soul (which is presupposed tobe physical too) and makes it divine From this new nature religious-ethicallife flows almost automatically

This approach to the work of the Spirit in Paul usually locates the apostle ina Stoic context However an extensive examination of Graeco-Roman literaturereveals that these writings provide only very few direct links for the early Chris-tian statement ldquoGod has given us the Spiritrdquo⁵⁵ According to the teaching of theStoics everything and everyone ldquopossessesrdquo πνεῦμα This is due to the fact thatπνεῦμα was understood as a physical principle that permeates the entire cosmosand holds it together No comparable distinction was made between divine andhuman Sspirit⁵⁶ as this seems to be presupposed in Pauline texts like Romans816 (ldquoit is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit helliprdquo) and 1Corinthians210ndash 12 (πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ)⁵⁷ In Stoicism the human

William Wrede ldquoPaulusrdquo In Das Paulusbild in der neueren deutschen Forschung ed K HRengstorf WdF 24 (Darmstadt Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1969) 61 58ndash59 emphasisadded Cf Otto Pfleiderer Paulinism A Contribution to the History of Primitive Christian Theologyvol 1 of Exposition of Paulrsquos Doctrine (London Williams and Norgate 1877) 201 HermannGunkel The Influence of the Holy Spirit The Popular View of the Apostolic Age and the Teaching ofthe Apostle Paul (Philadelphia PA Fortress Press 1979) 124ndash26 Thus also Asting ldquoon the basisof the fact that he receives the Holy Spirit the Christian becomes a different person The contentof his soul is from now on divine hellip and the Spirit brings forth a new divine way of liferdquo (DieHeiligkeit im Urchristentum FRLANT 46 [Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1930] 215) Formore details see the history of research in Rabens Spirit 4ndash14 253ndash306 As the term ldquosubstancerdquo is ambiguous one should rather use ldquomaterial or physical sub-stancerdquo in order to indicate that one operates with a concept of the Spirit as Stoff or (fine) matter See the more detailed treatment in Volker Rabens ldquoGeistes-Geschichte Die Rede vom Geistim Horizont der griechisch-roumlmischen und juumldisch-hellenistischen Literaturrdquo ZNT 25 (2010) 46ndash55 Senecarsquos ldquoholy spirit that indwells within usrdquo (Ep 411) is no exception to this rule for heexplains a little later that this spirit is the god-given human soul that human beings should livein accord with (418ndash9) However see the alternative interpretation of these passages by Desta Heliso ldquoDivine Spiritand Human Spirit in Paul in the Light of Stoic and Biblical-Jewish Perspectivesrdquo In The Spiritand Christ in the New Testament and Christian Theology Essays in Honor of Max Turner eds IHoward Marshall Volker Rabens and Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2012)156ndash76 Heliso helpfully points out that the different contexts in which Paul uses πνεῦμα (suchas Rom 19 1Cor 617 1213) indicate that Paul employs various linguistic expressions and


spirit is a fragment of the all-pervading world-pneuma which can also be refer-red to as ldquodivinerdquo (eg Cicero Nat d 219) Paul however uses a different con-cept when he speaks about ldquothe Spirit of his sonrdquo who is sent by God into thehearts of the believers (Gal 46) As the presence of God and presence of Christthe Spirit bears personal traits and is ldquoreceivedrdquo⁵⁸ There is no evidence in Paulthat he would share the same interest in the ontology of the Spirit as the Stoics

imageries to describe his new understanding of πνεῦμα ldquoPaulmdashlike others before during andafter himmdashuses divine and human categories but without implying the existence of two sepa-rate distinct (metaphysical) entitiesrdquo Introducing a concept from Latin Christology Heliso thenargues for the consubstantiality between human spirit and divine spirit However although thisposition is theologically very attractive it nonetheless seems to struggle to explain why Pauluses two different ldquolinguistic expressionsrdquo for the same one Spirit in the texts in questionΠνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου and πνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ in 1Cor 211 may indeed be of the same ldquosubstancerdquo(as Gen 211 may indicatemdashthough the talk of ldquosubstancerdquo as such is problematic see note 54above) but this common nature does not speak against the most obvious reading of the text

That is on the one side a human spirit is within the human being (πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου τὸ ἐναὐτῷ cf 54 1414 1618 Rom 19) that knows what is truly human and on the other side onlyπνεῦμα τοῦ θεοῦ comprehends what is truly Godrsquos However 1Cor 211 does not help us tounderstand what happens to the πνεῦμα τοῦ ἀνθρώπου when a person ldquoreceivesrdquo the πνεῦματοῦ θεοῦ Paul does not provide us with a systematic answer to this question Nonetheless whathe says in Rom 815ndash16 certainly contradicts the Stoic concept of toning up the soul throughphilosophymdashdeveloping its muscles assisting its use of its own capabilities more effectively etc(Seneca Ep 15 cf 61 where Seneca uses anima not spiritus) Romans 815ndash16 does not depictthe human spirit as being ldquotopped uprdquo or ldquoincreasedrdquo (rather ἐλάβετε πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίαςmdashv 15)Although Heliso states that in verse 16 ldquothe referent of τῷ πνεύματι ἡμῶν should not be differentfrom the referent of αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμαrdquo one wonders why Paul uses these two different expres-sions (which are not equated with ἐστιν as κύριος and πνεῦμα in 2Cor 317) when he says αὐτὸτὸ πνεῦμα συμμαρτυρεῖ τῷ πνεύματι ἡμῶν ὅτι ἐσμὲν τέκνα θεοῦ (Rom 816 cf v 26) It is clearfrom the preceding verses that αὐτὸ τὸ πνεῦμα refers to πνεῦμα θεοῦ πνεῦμα υἱοθεσίας (vv 14ndash15) However if τῷ πνεύματι ἡμῶν would refer to the same (divine) Spirit too the meaning ofldquotestifying withtordquo of συμμαρτυρέω is lost This becomes even more problematic if Deut 1915was in the background of Paulrsquos use of συμμαρτυρέω ldquoOnly on the evidence of two or threewitnesses [δύο τριῶν μαρτύρων] shall a charge be sustainedrdquoThe distinction between human and divine Sspirit conveyed in these two verses should cer-tainly not be overdrawn but it should keep us from speaking about the identity of the two oreven a ldquofusionrdquomdasha view championed 140 years ago by Pfleiderer (Pfleiderer Paulinism 213ndash 16)On the anthropological presuppositions of Paulrsquos notion of human beings being ldquoindwelledrdquo bythe Spirit see further Rabens Spirit 82ndash86 138ndash44 This is not to say that Paul had a fully developed concept of the Spirit as a ldquopersonrdquo cf thediscussions in Volker Rabens ldquoThe Development of Pauline Pneumatology A Response to FWHornrdquo BZ 43 (1999) 177ndash78 Max Turner ldquo lsquoTrinitarianrsquo Pneumatology in the New TestamentmdashTowards an Explanation of the Worship of Jesusrdquo ATJ 5758 (20022003) 167ndash86 see also JoumlrgFreyrsquos contribution to this volume

310 Volker Rabens

didWe do not find any of the kind of discussions about the nature of πνεῦμα aswe do in Stoicism⁵⁹

Moreover even in Stoicism the concept of deification through the infusionwith πνεῦμα is not readily available in the form in which it is presupposed bythe proponents of the infusion-transformation approach regarding Paul andhis context Despite some claims to the contrary one hardly finds a Stoic textin which human transformation by πνεῦμα with religious-ethical effects is ex-plicitly treated⁶⁰ Since there is a lack of more explicit data we can agree withBuumlchsel Keener and Annas that for the Stoics the physical concept of πνεῦμαdid not play a central role in their ethics but in their physics⁶sup1 The Stoics hencehad a materialistic pneumatology but not the concept of essential deification(with ethical effects) that is built upon it After birth a supplementary increaseor ldquocompressionrdquo of onersquos individual πνεῦμα through external intervention bythe divine (as the reception of the Spirit [Gal 31ndash5 1Thess 14ndash6 etc]⁶sup2) is

I fully agree with the fundamental point of the volume Paul Beyond the JudaismHellenismDivide edited by Troels Engberg-Pedersen (2001) With regard to our topic this means that it isan oversimplification to try to connect Paulrsquos mysticism to either a ldquoHellenistic-materialisticrdquo orto a ldquoJewish-immaterialisticrdquo pneumatology However it is likewise a false dichotomy when oneforces a division between either a Stoic or a Platonic reading of πνεῦμα in Paul as Engberg-Pedersen appears to do (Engberg-Pedersen Cosmology 16ndash 19) Engberg-Pedersen does notreckon with a third option which is that Paul did not follow the agendas of either of thesephilosophical schools Paul does not inquire into the (immaterial) nature of πνεῦμα The closestPaul comes to this interest in ontology is when upon the question of the Corinthians he dis-cusses the nature of the resurrection body (1Cor 1535ndash54) However it is the resurrection bodythat is in focus not the nature of πνεῦμα It is therefore misleading to make this the startingpoint not only of onersquos conception of Pauline pneumatology but also of Paulrsquos theology ingeneral (pace Engberg-Pedersen Cosmology 14) The closest one can get seems to be the description of Stoic physics by Diogenes Laertius inwhich he mentions in passing that the Stoics ldquoconsider that the passions are caused by thevariations of the vital breathrdquo (αἰτίας δὲ τῶν παθῶν ἀπολείποθσι τὰς περὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τροπάς7158) Friedrich Buumlchsel Der Geist Gottes im Neuen Testament (Guumltersloh Bertelsmann 1926) 47Craig S Keener The Spirit in the Gospels and Acts Divine Purity and Power (Peabody MAHendrickson 1997) 7 Julia Annas ldquoEthics in Stoic Philosophyrdquo Phronesis 52 (2007) 58ndash87esp 67 Nonetheless it is of course not possible to divorce ethics from physics in Stoic philo-sophy see the discussions in Marcelo Boeri ldquoDoes Cosmic Nature Matter Some Remarks on theCosmological Aspects of Stoic Ethicsrdquo In God and Cosmos in Stoicism ed Ricardo Salles (Ox-ford Oxford University Press 2009) 173ndash200 Rabens Spirit 30ndash35 On the latter see Volker Rabens ldquo1 Thessaloniansrdquo In A Biblical Theology of the Holy Spiriteds Trevor J Burke and Keith Warrington (London SPCK 2014) 198ndash212


not intended in Stoic philosophy Rather (ethical) transformation in Stoicismwas achieved cognitively through philosophy and active reasoning⁶sup3

Detailed exegesis of Paulrsquos epistles hence shows that one cannot determinean explicit inclusion or transformation ofmdashnor a demarcation frommdashStoic pneu-matology in Paulrsquos writings⁶⁴ As this potential interpretative framework appearsto be the main reason for arguing from the perspective of Paulrsquos pneumatologyfor an essential deification of the believer we can conclude that this approach tothe mystical work of the Spirit in Paul is at best speculative In the next part I willsuggest that the mystical work of the Spirit in Paul is better understood from arelational perspective and that Philo may help us to ascertain the results of mys-tical transformation in Paul with greater certainty

3 Pneuma and the Beholding of God in Paul

ldquoBeholding Godrdquo is a central feature of mysticism This is also true for the mys-tical theology of Philo and Paul⁶⁵ We will begin this section by briefly looking at

See eg Seneca Ep 61ndash2 7315ndash16 1101 10 Marcus Aurelius 814 [LS 61P] Cf A A Longand D N Sedley The Hellenistic Philosophers vol 1 of Translation of the Principal Sources withPhilosophical Commentary (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2001) 346ndash54 359ndash68381ndash86 Maximilian Forschner Die Stoische Ethik Uumlber den Zusammenhang von Natur- Sprach-und Moralphilosophie im altstoischen System (Stuttgart Klett-Cotta 1981) 151 Martha NussbaumThe Therapy of Desire Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton NJ Princeton Uni-versity Press 1994) esp ch 9 Christoph Horn Antike Lebenskunst Gluck und Moral von Sokratesbis zu den Neuplatonikern BsR 1271 (Munich C H Beck 1998) chs 1 and 4 Troels Engberg-Pedersen Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh TampT Clark 2000) ch 3 James Ware ldquoMoral Progressand Divine Power in Seneca and Paulrdquo In Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thoughted John T Fitzgerald RMCS (London Routledge 2008) 267ndash83 Luke Timothy Johnson Amongthe Gentiles Greco-Roman Religion and Christianity AYBRL (Yale CT Yale University Press2009) 70ndash71 Cf Rabens Spirit 80ndash 120 Nonetheless from the perspective of the reception of Paulrsquosletters it cannot be ruled out that Paulrsquos Spirit-language as for instance the image of being madeto drink of the Spirit (1Cor 1213c) evoked associations of Stoic pneumatology in Paulrsquos audienceHowever as we have seen the philosophic language of Stoicism fundamentally differs from thatof Paul Furthermore the proponents of the infusion-transformation view would need to provideevidence that Stoic pneumatology was part of the general education of the members of Paulrsquoschurches (and not just of the educated elite) and that they would moreover be able to fill thelogical gaps between the role of πνεῦμα in Stoic physics and the infusion-transformation con-cept of mystical transformation For further facets of Paulrsquos mysticism see Theissen ldquoPaulus und die Mystikrdquo 280ndash81 Incritical dialogue with Michael Wolter (Paulus Ein Grundriss seiner Theologie [NeukirchenNeukirchener Verlag 2011] 227ndash59 esp 255) Theissen points out that we do not find in Paul the

312 Volker Rabens

the nature of ldquobeholding the divinerdquo in Paul focusing on 2Corinthians 318 andits parallels in Philo Returning to the issue of deification we will then draw ourattention to the question of how the effects of this mystical beholding can be un-derstood Due to limitations of space this section will pass over many of the ex-egetical riddles that interpreters of 2Corinthians 318 and its context are facedwith I have tried to provide answers to a number of these issues in a more de-tailed treatment elsewhere⁶⁶ The present section builds on that exegetical inves-tigation but moves beyond it by focusing on the mystical nature of the transfor-mation described in 318 and particularly on the aspect of deification in Paul(and in Philo which we have discussed at the beginning of part 2)

31 Beholding the Glory of the Lord in 2Corinthians 318

In 2Corinthians 318 Paul presents the divine Spirit as causing people to come toknow God in Christ more intimately through a deeper understanding of and apersonal encounter with him As a result believers are being transformed intothe image of the divine (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα) As a thorough anal-ysis shows one of the means by which the Spirit achieves this transformation isthe ldquounveiling of facesrdquo⁶⁷ and the other one is what we can call ldquocontemplationof the divinerdquo In my reading of 2Corinthians 318 ldquocontemplation of the divinerdquois a fitting conceptualization of κατοπτρίζω⁶⁸ The Oxford English Dictionary de-fines ldquoto contemplaterdquo as ldquoto look at with continued attention gaze upon viewto observe or look at thoughtfullyrdquo⁶⁹ Accordingly the word ldquocontemplationrdquo en-compasses both visual as well as mental beholding For this reason I suggestthat conceptualizing ldquobeholding as in a mirrorrdquo in 2Corinthians 318 as ldquocontem-platingrdquo encompasses both the interpretation that renders κατοπτριζόμενοιmainly metaphorically as referring to a deeper understanding of Christ via thegospel and the view that emphasizes the visionary aspect of an encounter

semantics of mysticism but the imagery of mysticism we find in Paul ldquobeeindruckende Bildervon Tod Verwandlung Neuschoumlpfung und Vereinigung Sie weisen alle auf eine Verwandlungdes Menschen durch Naumlhe zu Gott Daneben stehen Beziehungsbilder in denen Gott in groszligerDistanz dem Menschen gegenuumlber steht Bilder von Befreiung Rechtfertigung Erwaumlhlung undVersoumlhnung Das Netzwerk von Verwandlungs- und Beziehungsbildern bildet das gesamteBildfeld des Heils bei Paulusrdquo Rabens Spirit 174ndash203 See Rabens Spirit 176ndash78 Jane M F Heath Paulrsquos Visual Piety The Metamorphosis of theBeholder (Oxford Oxford University Press 2013) 206ndash 17 Cf Rabens Spirit 178ndash90 OED2 III 811


with Christ as mirror and glory of God⁷⁰ An additional reason for comprehend-ing ldquobeholdingrdquo as ldquocontemplationrdquo is the fact that the ldquomechanismrdquo of transfor-mation in 318 may be well explained by the ancient notion of ldquotransformationthrough contemplationrdquo (as eg in Plato Tim 90cndashd etc)⁷sup1 As we have seen inpart 1 Philo is a key representative of this tradition

The motif of ldquotransformation through contemplationrdquo has often been seen ashaving roots in Graeco-Roman religions⁷sup2 Particularly the mystery cults were be-lieved to have influenced Paul at this point⁷sup3 but in current scholarship this

On these two aspects cf Meier Mystik 92ndash94 and less explicitly C K Barrett A Com-mentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians BNTC (London Black 1982) 125 M MargaretaGruber Herrlichkeit in Schwachheit Eine Auslegung der Apologie des Zweiten Korintherbriefs 2 Kor214ndash613 FB 89 (Wuumlrzburg Echter 1998) 280 Thomas Stegman The Character of Jesus TheLinchpin to Paulrsquos Argument in 2 Corinthians AB 158 (Rome Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico2005) 234ndash35 241ndash42 315 (with a stronger leaning towards the cognitive aspect) On the parallels in antiquity see David Sedley ldquolsquoBecoming like Godrsquo in the Timaeus and

Aristotlerdquo In Interpreting the TimaeusmdashCritias Proceedings of the IV Symposium Platonicum edsT Calvo and L Brisson IPS 9 (Sankt Augustin Academia 1997) 332 335ndash36 R ReitzensteinHellenistic Mystery-Religions Their Basic Ideas and Significance PTMS 15 (Pittsburgh PAPickwick 1978) 455ndash56 Johannes Behm ldquoμεταμορφόωrdquo TDNT 4758 Craig S Keener 1ndash2Corinthians NCBC (Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2005) 170 In addition Hornmentions the following (post-Pauline) references Porphyry Marc 13 Apuleius Met 1123ndash24Odes 131ndash4 Acts John 95 111ndash 13 1 Clem 362 Corp Herm 411 (Horn Angeld 425 cf thereferences to Corp Herm in Victor Paul Furnish II Corinthians AB 32 A [New York Doubleday1984] 240) See some of the sources cited in note 71 above and the summary in Willem C van UnnikldquolsquoWith Unveiled Facersquo An Exegesis of 2 Corinthians iii 12ndash 18rdquo In Sparsa Collecta vol 1 ofEvangelia Paulina Acta edWillem C van Unnik NovTSup 29 (Leiden Brill 1973) 195 which isread by Fitzmyer as an agreement by van Unnik with this view (Joseph A Fitzmyer ldquoGloryReflected on the Face of Christ [2Cor 37ndash46] and a Palestinian Jewish Motifrdquo TS 42 [1981] 643)However because of the scholars mentioned by van Unnik Fitzmyer overlooks the fact he andvan Unnik both view Paulrsquos mysticism as Jewish-Christian and not Hellenistic (van UnnikldquoFacerdquo 209) Garland highlights how the moral axiom of becoming like the gods we serve is alsofound elsewhere in Paul himself eg Rom 118ndash32 (David E Garland 2 Corinthians NAC 29[Nashville TN Broadman amp Holman 1999] 200) So eg Reitzenstein who argued against this background that 318 suggests the believerrsquosἀποθέωσις (or substantial μεταμορφωσις) through the reception of the Spirit Reitzenstein de-duced this from the connection of the words δόξα and πνεῦμα which for him evidenced thethought of complete transformation of the nature of the believer through γνῶσις θεοῦ (Reit-zenstein Mystery-Religions 454ndash59 cf Wilhelm Heitmuumlller Taufe und Abendmahl bei PaulusDarstellung und religionsgeschichtliche Beleuchtung [Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1903]20ndash21 Emil Sokolowski Die Begriffe Geist und Leben bei Paulus in ihrer Beziehung zueinanderEine exegetisch-religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung [GoumlttingenVandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1903]63ndash64 Bousset Kyrios 227n68) For a more recent materialistic interpretations of δόξα as ldquolight-

314 Volker Rabens

theory does not find much support⁷⁴ In fact the most obvious background of themotif is the pentateuchal narrative of Mosesrsquo encounter with God on Mount Sinaiitself The narrative of Exodus 33ndash34 and Numbers 125ndash8 contains all the nec-essary elements for elucidating ldquotransformation through contemplationrdquo Mosesis transformed upon speaking with God and encountering his glory This penta-teuchal tradition of Mosesrsquo transformation was broadly received in earlyJudaism⁷⁵ particularly in Philo (esp Mos 269 Post 12ndash 13 Leg 3101 as dis-cussed in part 1 and Pseudo-Philo eg LAB 1115 121) Moreover the penta-teuchal narrative of Mosesrsquo transforming encounter with God was part of abroader Jewish tradition that is reflected in the Hebrew Scriptures and early Ju-daism (as eg 2 Bar 513 10)⁷⁶ A number of texts of this tradition show partic-ularly striking parallels to 2Corinthians 318mdashmost prominently Philo De Migra-tione Abrahami 34ndash37 De Legatione ad Gaium 4ndash5 and Quaestiones etSolutiones in Exodum 27 (see section 1 above)⁷⁷

substancerdquo see John Koenig ldquoThe Knowing of Glory and its Consequences (2Corinthians 3ndash5)rdquoIn The Conversation Continues Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J Louis Martyn eds R TFortna and B R Gaventa (Nashville TN Abingdon 1990) 160ndash61 Litwa Becoming Divine 62ndash63 See the critical remarks in Rabens Spirit 93n59 192ndash95 For a critique of reading κατοπτριζόμενοι against ancient mystery cults see Rudolf Bult-mann Der zweite Brief an die Korinther KEK (Goumlttingen Vandenhoeck amp Ruprecht 1976) 98Horn Angeld 426 Furnish Corinthians 240ndash41 T C Smith ldquoInfluences That Shaped theTheology of Paulrdquo PRSt 25 (1998) 151ndash62 Frances Back Verwandlung durch Offenbarung beiPaulus Eine religionsgeschichtlich-exegetische Untersuchung zu 2 Kor 214ndash46 WUNT II153(Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2002) 47ndash48 156 Murray J Harris The Second Epistle to the Corin-thians A Commentary on the Greek Text NIGTC (Grand Rapids MIMilton Keyes EerdmansPaternoster 2005) 317 et al A more potent way of explaining the logic behind this mode oftransformation against a Hellenistic background has been presented by Weissenriederrsquos researchon ancient conceptions of ldquolooking into a mirrorrdquo see Annette Weissenrieder ldquoDer Blick in denSpiegel II Kor 318 vor dem Hintergrund antiker Spiegeltheorien und ikonographischer Abbil-dungenrdquo In Picturing the New Testament Studies in Ancient Visual Images eds Annette Weis-senrieder Friederike Wendt and Petra von Gemuumlnden WUNT II193 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck2005) 313ndash43 However Back rightly points out that Mosesrsquo transformation was not always explicitlyconnected with the Sinai-narrative Nonetheless it was often seen as an authentication of Mosesas recipient as well as mediator of divine revelation (Back Verwandlung 75) See Rabens Spirit ch 5 Next to Philo the Psalmists of the Hebrew Bible and the DSS also employ very similar motifsto 2Cor 318 so for example Psalm 1615 LXX records the prayer ldquoBut I shall behold your face(τῷ προσώπῳ σου) in righteousness [and] I shall be satisfied [or fed] upon beholding your glory(τὴν δόξαν σου)rdquo The Psalmist thus expresses that beholding the glory of the Lord makes adifference in his life (cf Ps 631ndash8) That this difference may be understood as a kind oftransformation comes more clearly to the fore in Psalm 336 LXX ldquoDraw near to him and be


What is morewe have observed that in Philo the divine Spirit plays a centralrole in stimulating a transforming relationship with God The Spirit providesboth cognitive-noetic as well as existential-mystical knowledge of God that trans-forms and empowers the recipient for religious-ethical life (eg QE 229Vit 269 Gig 54ndash55 see part 1)⁷⁸ It is this mystical traditionmdashnext to the pen-tateuchal narrative of Mosesrsquo transformationmdashthat suggests itself most stronglyto be in the background of the concept of ldquotransformation through contempla-tionrdquo in 2Corinthians 318 For this mystical tradition not only relates transforma-tion as a consequence of encountering God and receiving divine revelation but italso accommodates the important role of the Spirit in this process that is attrib-uted to κυρίου πνεύματος in 318

Before we turn to the transformation that follows from the beholding (both ofthem being the two key characteristics of mysticism) we may ask for the expe-riential dimension of ldquobeholding as in a mirrorrdquo in Paulrsquos churchesWhat aspectof religious life might Paul have appealed to Philip appears to be too restrictivewhen he identifies κατοπτρίζω almost exclusively with Paulrsquos conversion on theroad to Damascus employed by Paul to defend his authority as an apostle⁷⁹

While ldquobeholdingrdquo may include conversion (cf ldquoturning to the Lordrdquo in 316)it is clearly not limited to it and particularly not limited to Paulrsquos conversionPaul includes all believers as the recipients of the effects of the new covenantministry (ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες) Furthermore κατοπτριζόμενοι is not only a pluralbut also a present tense (like μεταμορφούμεθα) which suggests a continuous ac-tivityWe may rather assume that ldquobeholding the glory of the Lordrdquo takes placefor one thing through the existential confrontation that is brought about by the

enlightened and your faces shall not be ashamedrdquo The Qumran Psalmist relates a similarexperience ldquoI praise you Lord for you have illumined my face with your covenant hellip I will seekyou like the true dawn of morning you have appeared to me for enlightenmentrdquo (1QHa 125ndash6cf 27ndash29 113 1QS 23) Moreover God has put Israel on new grounds (ie his covenant) bygranting her both (cognitive) revelation by the Spirit as well as an encounter with his glory ldquoYouhave renewed your covenant with them in the vision of glory and in the words of your holy[spirit]rsquo (1Q34 frag 3 col 26ndash7) That contemplation of God and his revelation leads to atransformation of the heart is further expressed by the author of 1QS 113ndash7 ldquoFrom the spring ofhis justice is my judgment and from the wonderful mystery is the light in my heart My eyes haveobserved what always is wisdomhellip knowledge and prudent understandinghellip [which is the]fount of justice and well of strengthhellip rdquo This tradition is also reflected in Qumran see eg 1QHa 819ndash20 2011ndash 14 Philip Origins 189ndash90 cf 182ndash93 See also Carey C Newman Paulrsquos Glory-ChristologyTradition and Rhetoric NovTSup 69 (Leiden Brill 1992) 233ndash35 Seyoon Kim Paul and the NewPerspective Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paulrsquos Gospel (CambridgeGrand Rapids MIEerdmans 2002) 167ndash74

316 Volker Rabens

preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ (cf Gal 31ndash5 1Thess 14ndash6) Moreoverldquoinasmuch as the Gospel unleashes the power of the Spirit the glory of God isalso revealed through the renewed lives of those who now possess the Spiritas his lsquotemplersquo (cf esp 1Cor 619 f)rdquo⁸⁰ Further this proclamation of the gospelby word and example is inextricably bound up with Paulrsquos ministry of suffering(cf 2Cor 214ndash 17 47ndash 18) By way of summary we can thus say that the glory ofthe Lord is beheld in the ldquorichness of authentic Christian liferdquo⁸sup1 particularlywhen the presence of the Lord is experienced individually and corporately inthe worship of the gathered community (in the Lordrsquos Supper in songsScriptures⁸sup2 teachings and revelations etc see eg 1Cor 1426 Rom 815ndash 16Gal 46 etc)⁸sup3

32 Mystical Transformation as ldquoDeificationrdquoin 2Corinthians 318

In the second and main part of this section we now want to ask how we mayunderstand the result of the mystical transformation described in 2Corinthians318 As noted in parts 1ndash2 Philo can use the terminology of deification forthe effects of mystical beholding In part 2 we have discussed this interpretativeoption more generally from the perspective of the work of the Spirit in Paul Wenow return to this potential aspect of Paulrsquos mysticism as we look in more detail

Scott J Hafemann Paul Moses and the History of Israel The LetterSpirit Contrast and theArgument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 WUNT 81 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 1995) 425 Jan Lambrecht ldquoTransformation in 2 Cor 318rdquo Bib 64 (1983) 250ndash51 cf the still broaderformulation of Preszlig the place of this transformation is ldquoder ganze Geist-Raum lsquoen Christorsquordquo(Michael Preszlig Jesus und der Geist Grundlagen einer Geist-Christologie [Neukirchen-VluynNeukirchener Verlag 2001] 142) John R Levison has recently demonstrated convincingly that inspired interpretation ofScripture (reading ldquoMosesrdquo in 314ndash 16) was a central aspect of the transformation described in318 (Jack Levison Inspired The Holy Spirit and the Mind of Faith [Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans2013] 171ndash77) See also the discussion in Jane M F Heath ldquoMosesrsquo End and the SuccessionDeuteronomy 31 and 2 Corinthians 3rdquo NTS 60 (2014) 37ndash60 Cf Bousset Kyrios 159 Hafemann Paul 426 Gruber Herrlichkeit 283ndash84 Margaret EThrall A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians vol 1 ofIntroduction and Commentary on II Corinthians IndashVII ICC (Edinburgh TampT Clark 1994) 284ndash85Meier Mystik 92ndash94 On the experiential nature of the work of the Spirit in the Pauline churchesmore generally see Volker Rabens ldquoPower from In Between The Relational Experience of theHoly Spirit and Spiritual Gifts in Paulrsquos Churchesrdquo In The Spirit and Christ in the New Testamentand Christian Theology Essays in Honor of Max Turner eds I Howard Marshall Volker Rabensand Cornelis Bennema (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2012) 138ndash55


at the meaning and significance of Paulrsquos expression that through the Spirit-worked beholding of the glory of the Lord with an unveiled face we are trans-formed into the same image (τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα) Understandingthis phrase will be key to comprehending Paulrsquos idea of mystical transformationby the Spirit in 2Corinthians 318 As most scholars agree ldquothe same imagerdquo hererefers to Christ⁸⁴ as is suggested by the context in 44 Paul designates Christ asthe image of God (ldquohellip seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who isthe image of God [ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ]rdquo cf 46 Col 115) One of the mostrecent and most prominent writers on deification in Paul David Litwa con-cludes from this phrase that believers are ldquotransformed into Christrdquo that isthey are deified⁸⁵ In order to understand the import of this claim we need tolook at how Litwa defines deification He argues that the basis of deification

hellip is sharing in a or the divine identitymdashthat is sharing in those distinctive qualities whichmake (a) God (a) God It is not enough in other words to define deification in terms of

lsquolikenessrsquo to God For likeness is too vague in terms of content (how are two beingsalike) and degree (to what extent are two beings alike)hellip For lsquolikersquo language to workthe likeness has to be defined with reference to specifically divine qualitieshellip The[se] qual-ities must be constitutive of the divine identityhellip In this way participation in divine qual-ities results in a participation in the divine identity Likeness language in contrast tends todistinguish the identities of God and the deified This is because likeness never means iden-tity Participation means more than likenesshellip Participation language hellip allows us tospeak about sharing identityhellip In short then deification is the participation in the divineidentity of (a particular) Godhellip ⁸⁶

Litwarsquos definition of deification is helpful By applying this defined concept ofdeification to 2Corinthians 318 we are provided with a potential heuristic toolfor gaining a new perspective on the nature of the transformation that Paul as-cribes to the work of the Spirit in this passage However does the concept fit theevidence In the light of 2Corinthians 318 it seems unfortunate that Litwa sostrongly differentiates his definition of deification from the language of likenessNot only is ldquolikenessrdquo a more open term (as is ldquoparticipationrdquo) than the theolog-ically charged and in his definition more specific term ldquodeificationrdquo More signif-icantly ldquolikenessrdquo (to Christ) is a key concept that Paul tends to employ when hespeaks about human transformation as we will see further below For examplein Romans 829 Paul says that believers are ldquoconformed to the image [or like-ness] of his Sonrdquo (συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ) As in 2Corinthians

Thus eg Karl Pruumlmm Diakonia Pneumatos Theologische Auslegung des zweiten Kor-intherbriefes (Freiburg Herder 1967) 1192 et al Litwa Being Transformed 219ndash20 Litwa Being Transformed 32 see further Litwa Becoming Divine 63 68

318 Volker Rabens

318 Paul here employs the term εἰκών which is usually rendered as ldquolikenessrdquoldquoimagerdquo or ldquoformrdquo (BDAG LSJ etc) However in 318 εἰκών refers to Christ(without mentioning him explicitly⁸⁷) whereas Romans 829 speaks about theεἰκών of Christ The reason for this formulation in 2Corinthians 318 may be sim-ply linguistic (rather than ldquotheologicalrdquo in the sense of Paul employing a differ-ent concept of transformation in 2Cor 318) having mentioned Christ alreadyonce as τὴν δόξαν κυρίου⁸⁸ it appears to be stylistically more natural to againuse a circumlocution (rather than the name Ἰησοῦς Χριστός) in a second men-tioning (ie τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα) Applying his more typical formulation ofbeing transformed τῆς εἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ (Rom 829 cf Col 310 κατ᾽εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος) word-for-word to 318 would have meant an awkward dou-bling of εἰκών (being transformed ldquointo the image of the same imagerdquo)

In any case in Paul ldquolikenessrdquo does not appear to be differentiated fromldquoparticipationrdquo as strongly as Litwa suggests (ldquoparticipation means more thanlikenessrdquo⁸⁹) Litwa seems to overdraw his differentiation when he says thatonly participation involves ontological change whereas becoming like someoneelse does not⁹⁰ It is hard to imagine how in 2Corinthians 318 becoming likeChrist would not involve ontological change particularly as Paul says that weare transformed (μεταμορφούμεθα) into the image (of God) that is ChristWhen we look at Paul it seems rather that participation is inter alia a meansto greater likeness As believers participate ldquoin Christrdquo they are in the realm ofChristrsquos influence and become more like Christ

Litwa nonetheless prefers speaking about transformation into Christ He rightly observes thatChristians are not ldquobeing transformed into a lesser image than the true imagerdquo (Being Trans-formed 219n58) In an earlier publication Litwa explains that there will remain a differencebetween Christ and believers since Christ is the head of his body whereas believers are themembers (1Cor 117) The ldquochurchrsquos divinity for Paul is not an ontological statemdashlet alone amystical onemdashbut consists (at least in this life) in a mode of being that is manifested in concreteethical actsrdquo (M David Litwa ldquo2 Corinthians 318 and Its Implications for Theosisrdquo JTI 2 [2008]125) Likewise with regard to 2Cor 318 he says that ldquoeven though the image of Christ andbelievers become lsquothe samersquo still Christrsquos image remains superior to the image of believers as itsexemplar The eschatological image is always an Abbild of the Christological Vorbild and the-reby always inferiorrdquo (Litwa ldquo2 Corinthians 318 and Its Implicationsrdquo 129) Thrall notes with regard to δόξα κυρίου in 318 that ldquosince for Paul δόξα and εἰκών aresimilar concepts and in 44 the εἰκών of God is Christ we should expect that τὴν δόξαν herelikewise refers to Christ who is thus the glory of the Lord as he is the image of Godrdquo (ThrallCorinthians 1283) Litwa Being Transformed 32 Litwa Being Transformed 9 According to Litwa likeness means that two fundamentallydissimilar beings merely have secondary similarities


One of the most central passages in Paul on the churchrsquos participation inChrist is Romans 6 Here Paul draws out two major consequences of participa-tion 1) as believers participate in Christrsquos death they have died to sin and canwalk in newness of life (Rom 62ndash 11) The result thus relates to the realm ofethics in the broader sense⁹sup1 It is a likeness to Christrsquos character 2) Participat-ing in Christ not only means sharing in his death but also in his resurrectionHowever this aspect of life is in the future ldquowe will certainly be united withhim in a resurrection like hisrdquo (τῆς ἀναστάσεως ἐσόμεθα 65 68 πιστεύομενὅτι καὶ συζήσομεν αὐτῷ) Participation in Christ can hence at best be descri-bed as a gradual deification We will return to this point at the end of thisstudy

Litwarsquos central argument for conceptualizing the transformation described in2Corinthians 318 as deification is his assertion that it is impossible to separateChristrsquos humanity from his divinity If believers are transformed into Christ theyare transformed both into his humanity and his divinity⁹sup2 This conclusionshould be appreciated because Paul does not provide any evidence for distin-guishing the human from the resurrected Christ in this passage⁹sup3 HoweverPaulrsquos lines neither provide evidence that the divine aspect of Christ is hisfocus when he says ἡμεῖς δὲ πάντες hellip τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθαmdashal-though this is the emphasis of Litwarsquos discussion (which presupposes an earlyhigh Christology)⁹⁴ Remarkably Paul does not use Litwarsquos terminology ofldquotransformation into Christrdquo but of ldquotransformation into the same imagerdquo Wewill try to understand the meaning of this cryptic formulation by looking atthe way in which Paul uses εἰκών elsewhere By studying this usage we cansee that Paul tends to employ εἰκών in order to indicate the likeness of two en-tities not their total qualitative identity⁹⁵ For example in Romans 123 Paul

Cf Phil 21ndash2 Col 128 Eph 210 2Corinthians 517 leaves the details of the transformationnewness open γέγονεν καινά On the definition of ethics see note 16 above Litwa ldquo2 Corinthians 318 and Its Implicationsrdquo 121 See the recent overview and discussionof scholars who emphasize either the human or the divine ldquoaspectrdquo of Christ in Nicholas AMeyer Adamrsquos Dust and Adamrsquos Glory Rethinking Anthropogony and Theology in the Hodayot andthe Letters of Paul (Paper 8292 DigitalCommonsMcMaster Open Access Dissertations andTheses 2013) 164ndash71 Cf Blackwell Christosis 194ndash95 Chris Tilling Paulrsquos Divine Christology WUNT II323 (Tuuml-bingen Mohr Siebeck 2012) 119ndash23 Heath Paulrsquos Visual Piety 222 However Paul focuses on the divine aspect of Christ in the first reference in 2Cor 318 toChrist as δόξα κυρίου See Litwa ldquo2 Corinthians 318 and Its Implicationsrdquo 119 Regarding ldquoidentityrdquo in this context cf Aristotlersquos distinction between numerical andqualitative identity in Top 103a8ndash10 Metaph 1016b32ndash33 and the analysis in Ernst Tugen-dhat and Ursula Wolf Logisch-semantische Propaumldeutik (Stuttgart Reclam 1983) 168ndash69

320 Volker Rabens

speaks about people exchanging ldquothe glory of the immortal God for images re-sembling a mortal human being or birdsrdquo The images are not the human beingsor birds themselves but they resemble these as Paul explicitly says (ἐν ὁμοιώματιεἰκόνος) And in 1Corinthians 117 Paul calls the man ldquothe image and reflection ofGod (εἰκὼν καὶ δόξα θεοῦ)rdquo Again εἰκών indicates likeness but not qualitativeidentity⁹⁶ This conclusion can be easily applied to 2Corinthians 318 believersare changed into the same image (likeness) that is Christ (δόξα θεοῦ 318εἰκών τοῦ θεοῦ 44) but they are not changed ldquointo Godrdquo becoming qualitative-ly identical with God

Moreover another piece of the puzzle of Paulrsquos notion of ldquotransformationinto the same imagerdquo falls into place when we look at how he continues in chap-ter 4 There he elucidates the significance of having Christ manifested in theapostlesrsquo bodies Bearing Christ the image of God (44) and the glory of God(318 which is seen in the face of Jesus Christ 46) is spelled out as bearingboth his death and his life (410)mdashwhich can be understood as resembling thehuman and the resurrected Christ⁹⁷ Believers hence are not transformed intosome abstract divine image Rather since the ldquoexalted Christ hellip remains foreverthe crucified one their ongoing metamorphosis into the image of God or theimage of the Son (2Cor 318) is a participation in his cruciform narrative identityand the transformation into his cruciform imagerdquo⁹⁸ Mystical transformation inPaul thus has a physical aspectmdashcarrying around the death and life of Jesusin onersquos body (410)mdashthough this is not to say that religious-ethical change isbased on physical transformation in the sense of an infusion-transformation⁹⁹

Wenn a und b der Zahl nach ein einziges Ding sind wenn sie wie Aristoteles es erlaumlutertein und dieselbe materielle Einheit sind so haben wir es mit der Identitaumlt im engeren Sinnzu tun die man als numerische Identitaumlt bezeichnet In einem schwaumlcheren Sinn kann manauch dann sagen daszlig a dasselbe ist wie b (bzw hellip besser lsquodas gleichersquo hellip) wenn a und bzwei verschiedene Gegenstaumlnde sind die in einer bestimmten Eigenschaft (oder mehreren)gleich sind Dieses Verhaumlltnis zwischen a und b bezeichnet man als qualitative Identitaumlt

For further occurrences of εἰκών in Paul see Rom 123 829 1Cor 117 1549 2Cor 44 Col 115310 Outside Paul see Gen 126 Philo Leg 143 et al Wis 726 is of particular interest in thiscontext for Wisdom is both ldquoa spotless mirror of the working of Godrdquo (thus providing anintertext of Paulrsquos mirror-metaphor) and ldquoan image of his goodnessrdquo (εἰκὼν τῆς ἀγαθότητοςαὐτοῦ) The latter however implies a clearly ethical character to the notion of εἰκών whichseems to be in the background of Paulrsquos employment of the term here ldquoLiferdquo designates the resurrection power which brought Jesus back to life cf 47 12 14 Gorman Inhabiting the Cruciform God 92 cf Blackwell Christosis 193 195Wright Paul andthe Faithfulness of God 1023 Meyer Adamrsquos Dust 169 Thus however Troels Engberg-Pedersen ldquoComplete and Incomplete Transformation in PaulmdashA Philosophic Reading of Paul on Body and Spiritrdquo In Metamorphoses Resurrection Body andTransformative Practices in Early Christianity eds Turid Karlsen Seim and Jorunn Oslashkland Ek-


The type of physical deification that Litwa argues to take place in the present iswhat Paul projects into the future (414 1Cor 1544 49 [again using the idea ofbeing transformed into the image of Christ] Rom 811)sup1⁰⁰ The physical aspectof the inhabitation of Christ in the present is rather an embodiment of the nar-rative identity of Christ as one of death and life Significantly the ldquoouterrdquo (phys-ical) nature (ὁ ἔξω ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος) is wasting away while the inner nature (ὁἔσω ἡμῶν) is being renewed day by day (416)sup1⁰sup1

Finally we can bring still further clarity into the discussion of the notion oftransformation ldquointo the same imagerdquo by studying how Paul uses this idea else-where One of the clearest parallels to 2Corinthians 318 though not from the un-disputed Pauline epistles is Colossians 310sup1⁰sup2 The concept of ldquobeing trans-formedrdquo or as Colossians puts it of ldquobeing renewed in knowledgesup1⁰sup3 after theimage of its [ie that of the νέον ἄνθρωπον] creator [ἀνακαινούμενον εἰς ἐπίγνω-σιν κατ᾽ εἰκόνα τοῦ κτίσαντος αὐτόν]rdquo is here overtly related to ethics This is ob-vious from the fact that the renewal after Godrsquos image is closely intertwined withldquoputting on the new selfrdquo which is brought into ethical focus in the preceding

stasis 1 (BerlinNew York De Gruyter 2009) 137It is hellip rather likely that the idea in 2 Cor 318 is that the transformation of lsquousrsquo that is beingoperated by the pneuma is a transformation of lsquoourrsquo bodies as wholes from being infusedwith a certain amount of pneumamdashand the glory that corresponds with thatmdashinto a moreextensive infusion with more pneuma and more glory

Cf the slightly different concept of Litwa Becoming Divine 63 2Cor 318 ldquoindicates just howclosely believers are conformed to the glory of the Christ they are to become the same imagethat is the identical (corporeal) form as their divine Lord Insofar as Christians participate inChristrsquos pneumatic corporeality they participate in Christrsquos divine identityrdquo On the interpreta-tion of ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξαν (318) which is understood by Litwa and others to indicate thephysical basis of pneumatological transformation see Rabens Spirit 93n59 192ndash95 See eg Litwa Being Transformed 119ndash71 220ndash21 Were we to follow Steenberg we could argue that if Paul had wanted to emphasize thephysical aspect of the transformation he could have used μορφή rather than the less specificεἰκών (Dave Steenburg ldquoThe Case against the Synonymity ofMorphe and Eikonrdquo JSNT 34 [1988]85 ldquomorphē theou expresses a more visual element such that it is used to convey the visiblephysical appearancerepresentation of God in contrast to the less specific eikōn theourdquo) Ho-wever as George van Kooten rightly observes the two terms could also be used interchangeablyeg in Sib Or 38 (van Kooten Anthropology 89) It seems justified to refer to an epistle which is part of the Pauline tradition but notnecessarily written by Paul himself as long as one does not rest an argument on its evidencealone The disputed ldquoPaulinesrdquo should not be wholly disregarded when the attempt is made todescribe the theology of the apostle whose name they bear (cf Dunn Theology 13) As in 2Cor 318 knowledge is a relational concept in Col 310 as it is linked to God (cf Col110 cf the instrumental role of the mind in Rom 122)

322 Volker Rabens

verses (the practices of the old self are lying etc see esp 39)sup1⁰⁴ As Dunn putsit ldquothe thought is equivalent to lsquoputting on Christrsquo in Rom 1314 as Col 33ndash4also implies At its simplest this means that the manner of Christrsquos living as at-tested in the Jesus tradition provided the pattern for this new self life (26ndash7)rdquosup1⁰⁵ Such an interlocking of being ldquocreated according to the likeness ofGodrdquo putting on the new self and paraenesis can also be observed in the par-allel text Ephesians 424 Here the transformation is described as happening inthe ethical qualities of righteousness and holinesssup1⁰⁶

The undisputed Pauline epistles provide even stronger evidence that trans-formation into the image of the divine predominantly refers to the ethical char-acteristics of conforming to Christ (cf the concept of imitating Christ in 1Thess16 Phil 25 1Cor 111 etcsup1⁰⁷) In Romans 829 Paul says that believers are ldquopre-

Back seems to think that Col 310ndash11 is not important for the discussion of 2Cor 318because the former speaks about transformation into the image of God whereas the latter isabout transformation into the image of the Lord ie Christ (Back Verwandlung 150) Howevershe does not discuss how this difference is significant In any case Dunn (The Epistles to theColossians and to Philemon A Commentary on the Greek Text NIGTC [CarlisleGrand Rapids MIPaternosterEerdmans 1996] 222) highlights that the concept of renewal into the divine image inCol 310

merges into Adam christology where Christ as the divine image hellip is the middle termbetween the creator and his first creation and his re-creation (cf Rom 829 1 Cor 1549 2 Cor318 44 cf Ign Eph 201 hellip) In this way Paul and Timothy in true Pauline style manage tohold together creation and salvation in the thought of Christ as both the creative power ofGod (115) and as the archetype for both creation and redeemed renewed humanity

Dunn Colossians 221 Cf Gerhard Kittel ldquoεἰκώνrdquo TDNT 2397 Marianne Meye ThompsonA Commentary on Colossians and Philemon THNTC (Grand Rapids MI Eerdmans 2005) 78 Onthe ethical aspect see esp Michael B Thompson Clothed with Christ The Example and Teachingof Jesus in Romans 121ndash 1513 JSNTSup 53 (Sheffield JSOT Press 1991) 149ndash60 Jung Hoon KimThe Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus JSNTSup 268 (London TampT Clark2004) 174ndash75 On the notion of identification with Christ see Peter Lampe ldquoIdentification withChrist A Psychological View of Pauline Theologyrdquo In Texts and Contexts Biblical Texts in TheirTextual and Situational Contexts Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman eds T Fornberg and DHellholm (Oslo Scandinavian University Press 1995) 937 On the similarities and differences between Col 39ndash 11 and Eph 422ndash24 see BucheggerErneuerung 233ndash34 Righteousness and holiness are specified as characteristics of God in LXXPs 14417 and Deut 324 Cf Kim Clothing Imagery 187ndash91 The difference between the texts in which Paul calls for imitatio Christi and 2Cor 318 is thatin the former Paul uses explicit imperatives asking the church to conform to Christ whereas in318 the agency of the transformation is explicitly attributed to the Spirit On the relation ofdivine and human agency in Paul see further Volker Rabens ldquolsquoIndicative and Imperativersquo as theSubstructure of Paulrsquos Theology-and-Ethics in Galatians A Discussion of Divine and HumanAgency in Paulrdquo In Galatians and Christian Theology Justification the Gospel and Ethics inPaulrsquos Letter eds Mark W Elliott et al (Grand Rapids MI Baker Academic 2014) 285ndash305


destined to be conformed to the image of his Son [προώρισεν συμμόρφους τῆςεἰκόνος τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ]rdquosup1⁰⁸ This passage is particularly interesting because itdraws together the thought of Romans 812ndash 17 and of 2Corinthians 318 to expe-rience the Spiritrsquos working is not only to experience sonship but also to becomemore like the Son and to take on increasingly the family likenesssup1⁰⁹ The ethicalsignificance of becoming more like the Son in Romans 829 is more specificallydrawn out by Cranfield He explains that

the believersrsquo final glorification is their full conformity to the εἰκών of Christ glorified but itis probable hellip that Paul is here thinking not only of their final glorification but also of theirgrowing conformity to Christ here and now in suffering and in obediencemdashthat is that συμ-μόρφους κτλ is meant to embrace sanctification as well as final glory the former beingthought of as a progressive conformity to Christ who is the εἰκών of God and so as a pro-gressive renewal of the believer into that likeness of God which is Godrsquos original purposefor man (cf Col 39 f)sup1sup1⁰

This idea of religious-ethical transformation is also expressed in Galatians 419where Paul is concerned that ldquoChrist is formedrdquo in the Galatians (μορφωθῇ Χρι-στὸς ἐν ὑμῖν)sup1sup1sup1 In the situation of the Galatiansrsquo developing enmity towardsPaul through turning away from him (and from the truth 416) and returninginto bondage to the beggarly elemental spirits (49) and the law (421) Paul isin pain that Christ within them will shape the character of the community tosuch an extent that they will be able to ldquoshare in the fullness and freedom of

Lambrecht notes that Paul uses the concept of transformation in 318 (and Rom 122) whereas he uses that of conformation in Rom 829 and Phil 310 21 He explains that both terms refer to the same reality Nonetheless he concludes that ldquoa deeper unity ie identity (be it without consequent loss of distinct being) is indicated more by transformation than by con-formationrdquo (Lambrecht ldquoTransformationrdquo 253ndash 54 251) See the detailed analysis of the se-mantic overlap of the verbs central to the parallel passages discussed in the present section in Buchegger Erneuerung 156 ndash 62 Cf James D G Dunn Jesus and the Spirit A Study of the Religious and Charismatic Expe-rience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament (London SCM Press 1975) 321 Both passages operate with the concept of εἰκών On the differences between the two see page 319 above C E B Cranfield A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans vol 1 of Introduction and Commentary on Romans IndashVIII ICC (Edinburgh TampT Clark 1975) 432 Cf Kittel ldquoεἰκώνrdquo 396ndash 97 The best way to render ἐν ὑμῖν is ldquoamong yourdquo rather than ldquoin (each of) yourdquo (cf J Louis Martyn Galatians A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary AB 33 A [New York Doubleday 1997] 425n103) However the former rendering implicitly includes the latter

324 Volker Rabens

life hellip (220) which Christ himself had enjoyedrdquosup1sup1sup2 Our analysis of the way inwhich Paul uses the idea of being transformed into the image of the divine inGalatians 419 and elsewhere in his letters thus supports the same interpretationthat is also suggested by the immediate literary context of 2Corinthians 318sup1sup1sup3

transformation τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα focuses on the religious-ethical dimension oftaking on the character of Christsup1sup1⁴ This conclusion agrees with Litwarsquos generalpoint thatmdashbased on the parallel with Romans 122 (μεταμορφοῦσθε τῇ ἀνακαι-νώσει τοῦ νοός)sup1sup1⁵mdash2Corinthians 318 speaks about moral (and physical) assim-ilation to Godsup1sup1⁶

Before drawing some broader conclusions in part 4 we are now in a positionto summarize the results of part 3 1) The ldquomechanicsrdquo of mystical transformationin 2Corinthians 318 cohere with the relational model of the transforming work ofthe Spirit put forward in part 2 the Spirit creates relational immediacy (or inti-macy) with the divine by ldquounveilingrdquo the faces of believers enabling them to be-hold the ldquoglory of the Lordrdquo 2) Mystical transformation in 318 is further eluci-dated by the ancient concept of ldquotransformation through contemplationrdquo 3)Philo is part of the same tradition He provides a number of significant parallelsto Paulrsquos interpretation of the pentateuchal narrative of Mosesrsquo transformationthrough contemplation Also for Philo the Spirit plays a significant role in thiscontext 4) As far as the Sitz im Leben of 2Corinthians 318 is concerned Paulrsquosletters suggest that the Spiritrsquos work of enabling mystical beholding of the divinewas experienced in the context of Paulrsquos ministry to his church and in the rich-ness of communal Christian life 5) The language that Paul uses in the context ofmystical transformation is that of ldquolikenessrdquo or ldquoimagerdquo (εἰκών) This terminolo-gy is more open than Litwarsquos definition of deification as participating in the di-vine identity Although the latter definition may also work as an explanation ofτὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα the more ambiguous language of likenessshould not be rejected 6) Transformation ldquointo the same imagerdquo does notfocus primarily on transformation into the divine Christ (thus however Litwarsquosdiscussion) Rather bearing Christ in onersquos body is spelled out in 410 as bearing

James D G Dunn The Epistle to the Galatians BNTC (London Black 1993) 241 Cf BruceW Longenecker The Triumph of Abrahamrsquos God The Transformation of Identity in Galatians(Edinburgh TampT Clark 1998) 72 158 Martyn Galatians 429ndash30 Cf the ethical notion ofldquohaving the mind of Christrdquo in 1Cor 216 which is linked to discernment in 215 See further Rom155 (κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν) On the ethical aspects in 2Cor 4 see above on those in 2Cor 3 see further Rabens Spirit198ndash99 Pace Back Verwandlung 151ndash55 Cf Rabens Spirit 201ndash02 Litwa Being Transformed 220ndash21


both his death and his life (ie his human and his resurrected identity) If onewants to speak of participation in this context this should be specified as par-ticipation in Christrsquos cruciform narrative identity and the transformation into hiscruciform image as expounded in chapters 4ndash5 Further physical transformationis reserved for the future It is not the basis of moral transformation in 318 7)Pauline usage elsewhere of the motif of transformation into ldquothe same imagerdquoor the image of Christ supports the observations made on the basis of chapters3ndash4 namely that Paulrsquos primary focus in 318 rests on the religious-ethical di-mensions of taking on the character of Christ 8) Our exegesis of Philo in part1 supports this interpretation over against those who see physical change asthe basis of moral change in Paul particularly in 2Corinthians 318

4 Conclusion

Many of the key features that Philo and Paul ascribe to the work of the Spirit intheir various writings can be classified as ldquomysticalrdquosup1sup1⁷ In particular in both au-thors we find the thematic connection of the work of the Spirit as enabling anintimate mystical beholding of God that leads to a transformed virtuous lifeThis significant parallel between the views on the work of the Spirit of the Jewishphilosopher from Alexandria and that of the Jewish-Christian apostle to the Gen-tiles does not require literary dependence of the latter on the former Howeverthe fact that these convergences exist suggests that Paul was part of a religiousmilieu which held similar outlooks on the activity of the divine Spiritsup1sup1⁸ LikePaul Philo interprets the pentateuchal narrative of Mosesrsquo meeting with Godon Mount Horeb He describes it as a transformation through contemplationStrikingly Philo uses in this context the same key term for the beholding (asin a mirror) as employed by Paul κατοπτρίζω which is a biblical hapax legome-non More significantly however Philorsquos portrayal of the mystical encounter withthe divine as moral transformation provides a context of interpretation which (at

For an overview of the characteristic themes of Philorsquos pneumatology see John R LevisonThe Spirit in First Century Judaism AGJU 29 (Leiden Brill 1997) passim on Paul see MaxTurner The Holy Spirit and Spiritual GiftsmdashThen and Now (Carlisle Paternoster 1999) 112ndash32Rabens ldquoPowerrdquo 138ndash55 For similar convergences between Philo and the Johannine Tradition see Volker RabensldquoJohannine Perspectives on Ethical Enabling in the Context of Stoic and Philonic Ethicsrdquo InRethinking the Ethics of John ldquoImplicit Ethicsrdquo in the Johannine Writings eds Jan van der Wattand Ruben Zimmermann Kontexte und Normen neutestamentlicher Ethik 3WUNT 291 (Tuuml-bingen Mohr Siebeck 2012) 114ndash39

326 Volker Rabens

least indirectly) supports my reading of the debated mystical transformation de-scribed in 2Corinthians 318 While some interpreters include in their interpreta-tion of 318 the notion of physical transformation as a means to moral transfor-mation Philo explicitly does not build on such a potential mechanism ofreligious-ethical empowerment In contrast to Paul Philo investigates the natureof πνεῦμα and his philosophical treaties suggest that for him the divine Spirit isimmaterialsup1sup1⁹ Paul however does not provide any reflection on the immaterialnature of the Spirit For both then the relational dynamics of an intimate en-counter with the divine are the secret of mystical transformation For both theSpirit is the facilitator of this relational dynamic In contrast to Philo howeverPaul does not ascribe this ldquoministry of the Spiritrdquo (ἡ διακονία τοῦ πνεύματος2Cor 38) to Moses It is only in turning to Christ (316) that the ldquoveilrdquo is liftedby the Spirit in the context of the missional ministry of Paul and the apostlesThe Spirit thus has a Christological focus in Paulmdashalso because the Spiritmakes believers behold Christ and helps them take on his character (τὴνδόξαν κυρίου κατοπτριζόμενοι τὴν αὐτὴν εἰκόνα μεταμορφούμεθα 318)sup1sup2⁰

We can see in both Philo and Paul that mystical encounters with the divinetransform peoplersquos religious-ethical life In 2Corinthians 318 ethical effects arenot explicitly mentioned but they come to the fore when one looks at the context(2Cor 3ndash5) and when one turns to Pauline parallel passages that speak aboutbeing transformed into the image of Christ (eg Rom 829 Christians are ldquopre-destined to be conformed to the image of his Sonrdquo) The fact that ethical resultsof mystical beholding of the divine abound in Philorsquos writings provides furtherevidence for this line of reasoning However also in this regard (as in the caseof the immaterial nature of πνεῦμα) Philo offers more specific philosophical re-flection by employing the concept of deification For instance he says in Quaes-tiones et Solutiones in Exodum 229 that the inspired ldquocome near God in a kind offamily relation hellip [and] become kin to God and truly divinerdquo In the introductionto this article I have drawn attention to the fact that both Philo and Paul describethe divine-human relationship of those whom God has chosen as that of ldquoadop-tion as Godrsquos sonsrdquo Philo understands this new relation of kinship with God asdeification of the believer It was noted above that it would not be adequate toconceptualize this transformation as an essential deification because it was atemporal state (ie Mosesrsquo full ldquomigrationrdquo to the divine realm was still tocome) Like Platorsquos concept of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ (eg Plato Theaet 176b

Cf note 39 above Cf note 17 above


Leg 715bndash716e cf Clement of Alexandria Strom 222131ndash36) deification inPhilo focuses on ethical improvementsup1sup2sup1

Paul does not use the language of deification Nonetheless it is possible toapply this concept to Paulrsquos letters as an etic categorymdashalthough one needs to beopen to admit at least on the basis of 2Corinthians 318 that assimilation to Goddoes not unequivocally bear the marks of Blackwellrsquos concept of essential deifi-cation (ldquoattributiverdquo may be the more fitting language cf part 2) However asassimilation to God is in 2Corinthians 318 and elsewhere in Paul spelled outas assimilation to Christ the term Christosis (ldquoChristificationrdquo) seems to be par-ticularly appropriatesup1sup2sup2 Christosis means assimilation to Christrsquos narrative iden-tity with its characteristic elements of past present and future of Christrsquos storywhich is reflected in the very life and existence of the church As Blackwellpoints out

based upon a close divine-human encounter Paulrsquos soteriology consists in the present ofa moral enablement and noetic enlightenment in a somatic context of suffering (2 Cor 313ndash418 Rom 74ndash6 81ndash 13)hellip The consummation of this soteriology will occur in the futurethrough a bodily resurrection (Rom 89ndash30 2 Cor 36 18 416ndash55 21 Col 34 1 Cor 1512ndash58 Phil 310 20ndash21) During both temporal stages believers are empowered by the Spirit togrow into conformity with the death and life of Christsup1sup2sup3

The aspect of (moral) transformation into Christrsquos character which features in2Corinthians 318 is hence embedded in a broader eschatological processwhich affects believers holistically 2Corinthians 318 focuses on the transformingwork of the Spirit in the present However as it portrays a gradual transforma-tion indicated by the present tense μεταμορφούμεθα (and perhaps by the notionof ἀπὸ δόξης εἰς δόξανsup1sup2⁴) the future (gradual) element of this transformation isalready implied

See van Kooten Anthropology 90 172 etc On Philorsquos acquaintance with Platorsquos Theaetetus see van Kooten Anthropology 186ndash 88 Cf Blackwell Christosis 26 4ndash67 Litwa Becoming Divine 68 Blackwell Christosis 2 42ndash43 Cf Blackwellrsquos chart of the various aspects of assimilation to Christ in Paul (p 242) which respects the characteristic structure of the ldquonow and not yetrdquo of Paulrsquos eschatology (on which see e g Rabens ldquoSchon jetztrdquo 103 ndash 28) This aspect of ldquotimerdquo is often ignored in Litwarsquos delineation of deification in Paul (cf Volker Rabens ldquoReview of David M Litwa We Are Being Transformed Deification in Paulrsquos Soteriologyrdquo ThLZ 138 [2012] 446ndash 48) however it is also recognized by Finlan ldquoTheosisrdquo 73 who singles out three potential stages of deification according to Paul 1) dying to sin 2) reflecting righteousness and light and

3) receiving a glorious body Gorman (Inhabiting the Cruciform God 6ndash7) rephrases these as (1)dying to sin (2) moral transformation and (3) eschatological transformation Thus eg Bultmann Korinther 98 Horn Angeld 426

328 Volker Rabens

Philo and Paul have provided us with fascinating insights into early Jewishand early Jewish-Christian views of the work of the Spirit as enabling mysticalbeholding of and assimilation to the divine While there are some differencesin their perspectives on the Spirit-inspired mystical contemplation and transfor-mation (partly due to the more philosophical interests of the former and theChristological focus of the latter) the similarities abound Most significantly ithas been established that empowerment for religious-ethical life is the prime re-sult of the transformation which is achieved both in Philo and in Paul throughSpirit-enabled contemplation of the divine Moreover next to the deeper under-standing of Philorsquos mysticism for its own sake that proceeds from this study ourcomparative analysis confirms with regard to the debated interpretation of 2Cor-inthians 318 that it is on the basis of a Spirit-created intimate relationship to Godin Christ that believers are transformed ldquointo this very imagerdquo In other wordsthe mystical work of the Spirit inspires their lives to increasingly portray moreof the characteristics of Christ which is part of a process that we may call Chris-tosis


Table of Contents

Preface V

Abbreviations IX

Joumlrg Frey and John R LevisonThe Origins of Early Christian Pneumatology On the Rediscovery

and Reshaping of the History of Religions Quest 1

Teun TielemanThe Spirit of Stoicism 39

Heidrun Gunkel Rainer Hirsch-Luipold and John R LevisonPlutarch and Pentecost An Exploration in Interdisciplinary Collaboration 63

Soham Al-SuadildquoEven before his birth he will be filled with the Holy SpiritrdquomdashLuke 115 in the

Spectrum of Theological and Medical Discourses of Early Christianity 95

Annette WeissenriederThe Infusion of the Spirit The Meaning of ἐμφυσάω in John 2022ndash23 119

Beate EgoRuaḥ and the Beholding of GodmdashFrom Ezekielrsquos Vision of the Divine Chariot

to Merkaba Mysticism 153

Eibert J C TigchelaarHistorical Origins of the Early Christian Concept of the Holy Spirit

Perspectives from the Dead Sea Scrolls 167

Judith H NewmanSpeech and Spirit Paul and the Maskil as Inspired Interpreters of

Scripture 241

Fulco TimmersPhilo of Alexandriarsquos Understanding of πνεῦμα in Deus 33ndash50 265

Volker RabensPneuma and the Beholding of God Reading Paul in the Context of Philonic

Mystical Traditions 293

Michael BeckerSpirit in RelationshipmdashPneumatology in the Gospel of John 331

Joumlrg FreyHow did the Spirit become a Person 343

Index Ancient Texts 373

Index Modern Authors 395

Index of Subjects and Ancient Names 403

VIII Table of Contents

As a result of such experiences of closeness to and participation in the divinehuman beings are transformed⁵ These two fundamental characteristics of mys-ticism (ie the beholding of God and the resulting transformation) will guideour investigation of Philo⁶ and Paul⁷ The specific contribution of this article

Klaus Scholtissek singles out cognitio dei experimentalis and unio distinctionis as the twoelements of Christian mysticism (ldquoMystik im Neuen Testament Exegetisch-theologische Bau-steine [I Teil]rdquo GuL 75 [2002] 284ndash86) On ldquounion with Godrdquo in Philo cf note 24 belowWhileConstantine Campbell somewhat narrowly identifies Pauline mysticism (only) as union withChrist (Paul and Union With Christ An Exegetical and Theological Study [Grand Rapids MIZondervan 2012] 59ndash60) Theissen notes five aspects that should be taken into account whendealing with mystical texts in general

Erstens die religioumlse Erfahrung zweitens die literarische Form in die sie transformiertwurde drittens die Gemeinschaft in der Mystik gepflegt wird viertens die in ihr lebendenmystischen Traditionen Entscheidend aber ist der fuumlnfte Aspekt Wie wird mystischesErleben in der Theologie gedeutet Wird die Beziehung zu Gott als Begegnung Ver-

bundenheit oder Vereinigung verstanden hellip [Z]ielt Mystik auf Erneuerung der Person oderEntleerung des Ichs von allem hellip All das sind Deutungen (Theissen ldquoPaulus und dieMystikrdquo 265)

On ldquomysticismrdquo in Philo see further Hans Leisegang Der Heilige Geist Das Wesen und Werdender mystisch-intuitiven Erkenntnis in der Philosophie und Religion der Griechen I1 Die vor-christlichen Anschauungen und Lehren vom ΠΝΕΥΜΑ und der mystisch-intuitiven Erkenntnis(Leipzig Teubner 1919) Erwin R Goodenough By Light Light The Mystic Gospel of HellenisticJudaism (OxfordNew Haven CT Oxford University PressYale University Press 1935) DavidWinston Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati OH Hebrew UnionCollege Press 1985) David Winston ldquoPhilorsquos Mysticismrdquo SPA 8 (1996) 74ndash82 Christian NoackGottesbewuszligtsein Exegetische Studien zur Soteriologie und Mystik bei Philo von AlexandriaWUNT II116 (Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2000) Scott D Mackie ldquoSeeing God in Philo of Ale-xandria Means Methods and Mysticismrdquo JSJ 43 (2012) 147ndash79 For further definitions and discussions of Pauline mysticism see Adolf Deissmann Paul AStudy in Social and Religious History (London Hodder amp Stoughton 1926) 149 152 Kurt DeiszlignerPaulus und die Mystik seiner Zeit (LeipzigErlangen Deichertrsquosche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1921)122ndash23 127 136ndash38 Albert Schweitzer The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (London Black 1953)Alfred Wikenhauser Pauline Mysticism Christ in the Mystical Teaching of St Paul (FreiburgEdinburgh HerderNelson 1960) C Kourie ldquoChrist-Mysticism in Paulrdquo The Way Supplement102 (2001) 71ndash72 Ulrich Luz ldquoPaul as Mysticrdquo In The Holy Spirit and Christian Origins Essays inHonor of James D G Dunn eds G Stanton B W Longenecker and S C Barton (Grand RapidsMICambridge Eerdmans 2004) 131ndash43 As ldquomysticismrdquo is a category used for the study ofvarious religions it is not necessary to follow those who think that one should drop the termaltogether in Pauline studies because of the various definitions that have been suggested (thushowever Ernst Kaumlsemann Commentary on Romans [London SCM Press 1980] 220ndash21 E PSanders Paul and Palestinian Judaism [London SCM Press 1977] 435n19 et al and mostrecently Emmanuel L Rehfeld Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus Die ontische Wirksamkeit derChristusbezogenheit im Denken des HeidenapostelsWUNT II326 [Tuumlbingen Mohr Siebeck 2012]

294 Volker Rabens









296 Volker Rabens









298 Volker Rabens

gr00vebox
Typewritten Text
--











300 Volker Rabens















302 Volker Rabens














304 Volker Rabens












306 Volker Rabens








308 Volker Rabens








310 Volker Rabens










312 Volker Rabens










314 Volker Rabens








316 Volker Rabens











318 Volker Rabens








320 Volker Rabens










322 Volker Rabens











324 Volker Rabens







4 Conclusion



326 Volker Rabens











328 Volker Rabens



Table of Contents

Preface V

Abbreviations IX













Scripture 241


















296 Volker Rabens









298 Volker Rabens

gr00vebox
Typewritten Text
--











300 Volker Rabens















302 Volker Rabens














304 Volker Rabens












306 Volker Rabens








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312 Volker Rabens










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“Pneuma and the Beholding of God: Reading Paul in the Context of Philonic Mystical Traditions,”...

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Transcript of “Pneuma and the Beholding of God: Reading Paul in the Context of Philonic Mystical Traditions,”...