Joseph A. Fitzmyer First Corinthians

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 Otherwise, if you bless [with]

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.