From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Oct 23 1995 - 07:05:37 EDT
I'd like to propose for discussion parallel themes in the passages from
Philippians and Genesis cited above. The parallels I have in mind are
perhaps fundamentally literary, although I think that they are also
theological. It may well be that the parallels have been noticed before--I
would suppose there's a good deal of literature on the Philippians passage
that I don't know of and haven't explored; on the other hand the parallels
may exist only in my imagination. The shared themes I see are competitive
struggle between human being and God and the paradox of human striving and
divine initiative.
Phil 1:12 OUX hOTI HDH ELABON H HDH TETELEIWMAI. DIWKW DE EI KAI KATALABW,
EF' hWi KAI KATELHMFQHN hUPO XRISTOU [IHSOU]. 13 ADELFOI, EGW EMAUTON OU
LOGIZOMAI KATEILHFENAI; hEN DE, TA MEN OPISW EPILANQANOMENOS TOIS DE
EMPROSQEN EPEKTEINOMENOS, 14 KATA SKOPON DIWKW EIS TO BRABEION THS
ANWKLHSEWS TOU QEOU EN XRISTWi IHSOU.
This passage has always been fascinating to me in that the athletic
metaphor of the race is so fundamentally Greek in its focus on competitive
endeavor to win the prize for oneself (I think of the much-cited Homeric
line, AIEN ARISTEUEIN KAI hUPEIROXON EMMENAI ALLWN, and I could cite at
least one Pindaric parallel to the racing image Paul uses here). At the
same time the endeavor as Paul's image describes it is NOT a competition
against other racers but rather pursuit of a goal that must (so it would
appear) be reached by running to it; finally, the pursuit has as its
objective an apprehension (KATALABEIN) of something for which the runner
has already been apprehended (KATELHMFQHN) by Christ. So the racing itself
is ordained by Christ and the runner has already been seized by Christ, but
the running is nevertheless an earnest endeavor by the runner to reach an
objective that he has not yet grasped (OU LOGIZOMAI KATELEHFENAI). That
Paul has thought repeatedly about this reciprocal relationship is evident
from 1 Cor 13:12b (in its larger context): GINWSKW EK MEROUS, TOTE DE
EPIGNWSOMAI KAQWS KAI EPEGNWSQHN.
In the Genesis passage there is a culmination of a process sketched over
several chapters by the master storyteller who has shaped the narrative of
Jacob with a delicious irony and playful exploitation of the etymology of
names: Jacob the "heel," the "supplanter" who grasps his brother by the
heel in a determination to come out ahead of him; the outcome of the
night-long wrestling at Peniel, wherein Jacob is told that his new name,
ISRAEL, has been given him because he has "struggled against men and God
and has prevailed," and this despite the fact that the name ISRAEL means
"God prevails" and it is Jacob who, though has persisted and maintained his
grip throughout the night, has been altered and crippled by the wrestling
ending in this strange "blessing" of him by the stranger whom Jacob knows
to have been God, because he names the place of the wrestling PENIEL.
Moreover, there is the recurrent etymological play upon "face" (PANIM); all
this is closely tied to the narrative context of Jacob's "facing" his
brother Esau, so that Jacob evidently cannot "face" Esau until he has
"faced" God. I doubt if the ironies of all this have ever been worked out
in all their implications more masterfully than by Thomas Mann in that
first novel of his "Joseph" tetralogy, _Tales of Jacob_.
One of the striking things about the Jacob narrative is that it doesn't, to
my (very limited) knowledge of the OT text as a whole, appear to have any
repercussions or reflection in later Biblical tradition. And I don't know
whether there's any real linkage between this passage in Genesis and Paul's
racing metaphor, but the parallel aspects of the two seem remarkable to me,
for all the obvious differences. Perhaps the parallelism lies more in the
theological perspective on human endeavor and divine initiative
encapsulated in both images.
Does anyone know of a relationship between these passages observed or
discussed elsewhere? Am I seeing anything here that goes beyond the
superficial structure and imagery of the two passages?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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