Some notes on the exceptional Fitzmyer's commentary
Corinth – Corinth on two seas
was the
second most important city in ancient Greece, but n the first century a.d. it
would have been more important than Athens. Along with Rome, Alexandria, and
Antioch on the Orontes (Syria), it would have been one of the four most
important cities of the Mediterranean world.
the end of
a.d. 56 or, more likely, at the beginning of a.d. 57, before Pentecost
Pauline
Teaching: I believe sums up best the heart of the Apostle’s theological
teaching: “God was pleased to save those who believe through the folly of the
proclamation (k≤rygma). Whereas Jews demand
signs and Greeks seek wisdom, we proclaim Christ crucified (k≤ryssomen Christon estaurΣmenon), a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
but for those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God
and the wisdom of
God” (1 Cor
1:21–24).
The Effects of the Christ-Event: in 6:11,
“now you have been washed, you
have been
sanctified, you have been justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and by the
Spirit of our God.”
To soma tou
Christou is used in three different senses in Pauline writings:
(1)
literally,of the historical body of Christ crucified (Rom 7:4);
(2)
analogously, of the ecclesiastical body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27 [with ekkl≤sia mentioned explicitly in 2:28]; cf. Eph 4:12); and
(3)
liturgically of the eucharistic body of Christ (1 Cor 10:16; 11:27).
11,26. For as often as you eat this bread
and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s
death.
As Pfitzner remarks, “There is no
worship without remembering, and there is no liturgical remembering without
proclamatory narrative” (“Proclaiming,” 16). In
Gal 2:20, Paul explains, “I have
been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who
live, but Christ who lives in me;
and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by
faith in the Son of God who loved
me and gave himself for me.” Cf. 2 Cor
4:10–11. The proclamation “has the
character of a confession of praise, directed
to God, to whose revelation it
responds, but simultaneously directed to the world,
to whom the saving death of Christ
and his present rule are solemnly announced”
(Bornkamm, “Lord’s Supper,” 141)
14,16
your spirit, how shall one who holds the place of an outsider say “Amen” to your
thanksgiving, when he does not know what you are saying?
The noun eucharistia does not mean Eucharist here, but
simply “thanksgiving,”
a form of prayer that Paul does not
distinguish from “blessing” (v. 16a), because
of his Semitic background (in
Hebrew the hiphil conj. of ydy can mean
“praise” or “thank”). The cog.
verb, eucharisteΣ, appears in 1:4, 14; 14:17, 18.