The Issue of Eidōlothuta in First Corinthians 8-10 and Chinese Ancestor Veneration:
An Inter(con)textual Interpretation
Menghun Goh
In most societies, rituals are multiple and redundant. They do not have just one
message or purpose. They have many, and frequently some of these messages
and purposes can modify or even contradict each other. Nonetheless, ritual
practices seek to reformulate a sense of the interrelated nature of things and to
reinforce values that assume coherent interrelations, and they do so by virtue of
their symbols, activities, organization, timing, and relationships to other activities.
– Catherine Bell1
This paper approaches the issue of eidōlothuta (idol food) from three areas: contextual,
textual, and hermeneutics. Too often 1 Cor. 8-10 is used as one of the proof texts to condemn
Chinese ancestor veneration. This attack is considerable when ancestor veneration, practiced
more than 10,000 years,2 is closely intertwined with Chinese familial and sociopolitical identity.3
1 Cor. 8-10, however, is not about ancestor veneration; it is about idolatry and idol food. So
unless ancestor veneration is caricatured as idol worship, the application of 1 Cor. 8-10 is
misplaced.
But if no Chinese call their ancestors “idols,” how do we associate ancestor
veneration with idol worship?4 In what way is such labeling a form of demonization, if not also
a phobia toward Chinese cultures? Moreover, if our definition of “idol” assumes certain notions
of “God” and “religion,” then we need to clarify these notions because Western and Chinese
conceptions of idol and idolatry may have different significations. As too many conflicts and
1
Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1997), 136.
Emphasis added.
2
William Lakos, Chinese Ancestor Worship: A Practice and Ritual Oriented Approach to Understanding Chinese
Culture (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 12-13.
3
Kenneth Latourette writes, “No attempt to understand the Chinese can be anything but imperfect without at least a
brief description of the ritual practices concerning the departed kin, ancestor worship and ancestor veneration. See
Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Chinese: Their History and Culture (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964),
537. Quoted from William Lakos, Chinese Ancestor Worship, 11.
4
For example, while many models have been proposed and used to tackle Chinese ancestor veneration, missionaries
and scholars do not make explicit how ancestors are idols. See Henry N. Smith, “A Typology of Christian
Responses to Chinese Ancestor Worship,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26:4 (Fall 1989): 628-47.
1
alienation happen because of a simplistic comparison, it is of great importance to realize that our
interpretation of biblical texts does matter!5 The second area is a textual one. When discussing 1
Cor. 8-10, biblical scholars tend to focus on solving the inconsistency of the text. For many,
Paul’s injunction on idol food seems contradictory.
The ambivalence in the text makes a
formulation of Paul’s ethics difficult. So, in making sense of the text, scholars use form, source,
historical, and socio-rhetoric criticisms to clarify the discrepancy. Many, however, seldom pay
attention to the religious dimension of the text, which at times is characterized by contradiction.
This lack of study is related to the third area: hermeneutical issue. If ancestor veneration is
construed within ritual, it is important to clarify our notion of ritual, lest it be assumed as
superstitious, backward, stifling, and mechanical. But because of its religious or apophatic
features, ritual as a discursive performance, as the epigraph indicates, is not only infused with
ambiguity and ambivalence; it is also beyond our total grasp and categorization.
The
ambivalence, however, is not an incoherence; it is the result of inter(con)textuality.6 As the term
suggests, inter(con)textual highlights the discursiveness of meaning making in the interplay of
text and context in an interpreter’s attempt to understand. This discursive feature is relevant to
our notion of idol. 7 In 1 Cor. 8:4-6, for example, when Paul writes that “οὐδέν εἴδωλον ἐν
5
Daniel Patte, for example, has emphasized the ethical implications of our interpretations of biblical texts. Not only
does Patte underscore the ethics of interpretations, he also shows how the assumptions presumed by different models
of ethics frame scholarly interpretations of the biblical texts. See Daniel Patte, Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: A
Reevaluation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995); Daniel Patte, Discipleship according to the
Sermon of the Mount: Four Legitimate Readings, Four Plausible Views of Discipleship, and Their Relative Values
(Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996); Daniel Patte, The Challenge of Discipleship: A Critical Study
of the Sermon of the Mount as Scripture (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999). Also, see Thomas W.
Ogletree, The Use of the Bible in Christian Ethics (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983).
6
This approach is one of the main approaches (namely, inculturation, liberation, inter(con)textual, and “breaking the
text”) used in the Global Bible Commentary. See Daniel Patte (general editor) and J. Severino Croatto, Nicole
Wilkinson Duran, Teresa Okure, and Archie Chi Chung Lee (associate editors), Global Bible Commentary
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2004).
7
For example, Jean-Luc Marion writes, “The idol does not indicate, any more than the icon, a particular being or
even class of beings. Icon and idol indicate a manner of being for beings, or at least for some of them.” Jean-Luc
2
κόσμῳ,” it is often rendered as “an idol has no real existence” (RSV). That is, we interpret οὐδέν
in an ontological sense as non-existent. But according to BDAG (1979: 591-92), οὐδέν has
substantive and non-literal meanings. It can also mean worthless, meaningless, and invalid, as
Chinese translation does. So why do English translations render οὐδέν ontologically8? Whether
this translation in 8:4 seems to contradict 8:5, this paper finds the framework of ritual and
inter(con)textual approach helpful to tease out the discursive notion of “idol.”
Ritualization and Inter(con)textual Interpretation
The study of ritual is important to our understanding of idol food and ancestor veneration,
especially when the influence of ritual is rather pervasive. In her study of ritual, broadly defined
as a distinctive way of acting (hence, ritualization), Bell contends that the ritual activities in
religion shows that religion has a wide ranging influences on many aspects of life.9 She also
argues that rituals “do not have just one message or purpose. They have many, and frequently
some of these messages and purposes can modify or even contradict each other.” 10 This
polysemy of ritual further stresses that the power of ritual is not only multidimensional and
multidirectional; it is also far-reaching and deep-seated.11
Marion, God without Being. Translated by Thomas A. Carlon. Foreword by David Tracy (Chicago and London:
The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 7. Emphasis added.
8
NRSV: “no idol in the world really exists;” KJV and NKJV: “an idol is nothing in the world;” NAS: “there is no
such thing as an idol in the world;” NIV: “an idol is nothing at all in the world;” NJB: “none of the false gods exists
in reality;” NAB: “there is no idol in the world;”etc. The Chinese translation (和合本): 偶像在世上算不得什么
(idol in the world does not mean much).
9
Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, 22. In this paper, I use ritual and ritualization
interchangeably to express the dynamic and fluid features of ritual as an ongoing process and performance, lest we
reify the dichotomy between practice and theory in our constructed category of “ritual.”
10
Ibid., 136.
11
Foucault contends that “power is exercised from innumerable points” (94) and “there is no ‘escaping’ it” (95), and
it is “not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with it; it is the name that
one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society” (93). See Michel Foucault, The History of
Sexuality. 3 vols. Vol. 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley (New York: Random House, 1978). For this
notion of pervasive power in ritual in forming the social and individual body, in domination and resistance, see
Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), 197-223. Bell
writes, “It is in ritual […] that we can see a fundamental strategy of power.” Ibid., 204.
3
Indeed, ritual is not a fixed, mechanistic, or formalized format of acting (out) in our
attempt to make sense of the world. Neither is it primitive, superstitious, or retrograde, as it has
been used derogatorily to define the other as inferior and uncivilized! But if our everyday life is
already infused with many ritual-like traditions and customs, from such national event like the
Presidential Inauguration or social event such as game or festival to personal habits, then we
need to examine our notion of ritual.12 Ritual obviously is not imaginary without tangible effects.
But as Bell writes, “[r]itualization is fundamentally a way of doing things to trigger the
perception that these practices are distinct and the associations that they engender are special.”13
This triggering is not passive; it entails our negotiated, whether consciously or not, consent about
the norms imposed by ritual.14 For instance, in his study of the meal gathering in early ekklēsia,
Hal Taussig finds that as a ritual, the meal gathering provides a relatively safe milieu for the
believers in the Roman Empire to test the boundary set by the social norms.15 He writes,
These meals – because of their already established socially formative place in the
Hellenistic world – evoked social experimentation. They allowed early Christians
to try out new behaviors in dialogue with their vision of the realm of God. The
meals became a laboratory in which a range of expressive vocabularies explored
alternative social visions.16
12
Ibid., 91-169.
Idem. Emphasis added. Ritual, in other words, is like Bourdieu’s embodied notion of habitus that forms and
sustains the doxa (ideology or vision) that proffers order and meaning to how we comport ourselves in our
interaction with other in the world. See Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard
Nice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977), 72, 78, 94, 164, 168. One can find this idea of Bourdieu
in Maurice Merleau-Ponty; see Nick Crossley, “Sociology,” in Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts. Edited by Rosalyn
Diprose and Jack Reynolds (Stocksfield, UK: Acumen, 2008), 228-39.
14
Bell writes, “[r]itualization as any form of social control, however indirectly defined, will be effective only when
this control can afford to be rather loose. Ritualization will not work as social control if it is perceived as not
amenable to some degree of individual appropriation. If practices negate all forms of individual choice, or all forms
of resistance, they would take a form other than ritualization.” Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 222.
15
Hal Taussig, In the Beginning was the Meal: Social Experimentation and Early Christian Identity (Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press, 2009).
16
Ibid., 20.
13
4
The term laboratory is suggestive. Not only does it echo the fusion of times and directions
mentioned earlier, it also underlines that ritual is a negotiated activity that incorporates the past
into the present for a better future. Ritual even intervenes the time and space as it uses the
allotted time and space to craft another time and space. This in(ter)vention is significant for the
oppressed and the colonized, as Taussig points out; it reminds them of their identity and agency
without being caught by their past and the present. It empowers them to imagine and to have a
sense of responsibility to respond to their own heritage in the face of trials and tribulations.
Hence, the trials and errors in the repetition of time and space in the laboratory of ritual
not only preserve history and tradition; they also proffer framework for assurance and alteration.
The repetition in ritual is not mechanical; it inter-weaves and inherits the past, present, and future
together in the body and psyche of the participants. So while it imposes authority upon its
participants, the framework and details of ritual are not fixed (in meaning), as any performance
of ritual is a (re)enactment and (re)interpretation that speaks to certain situation and need. It is in
this space and time where control of manner and meaning lose its absolute grip that we find
ritual provide ways for participants to experiment and work out life conflicts and differences. 17
This repetition and mixing of time and space is foregrounded in inter(con)textual approach.
The feature of “inter” and “con”18 is crucial to inter(con)textuality. Signification is not
only multidimensional and relational; it is also an ethical “reading with” the other in broadening
Bell writes, “ritual acts must be understood within a semantic framework whereby the significance of an action is
dependent upon its place and relationship within a context of all other ways of acting: what it echoes, what it inverts,
what it alludes to, what it denies.” Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 220. Bell also points out “several
features emerge as very common to ritualization: strategies of differentiation through formalization and periodicity,
the centrality of the body, the orchestration of schemes by which the body defines an environment and is defined in
turn by it, ritual mastery, and the negotiation of power to define and appropriate the hegemonic order.” Idem.
18
The preposition inter means “between,” “among,” “into the midst of;” con simply means “with;” and the word
“text” refers to a “style or textual of a work; originally, thing woven,” a notion very similar to the Chinese word for
“text or scripture” (jing, 经). See Robert K. Barnhart, ed., The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology (New
York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995), 805. As such, an inter(con)textual interpretation presents us a picture not unlike
17
5
and deepening one’s “fusion of horizons.” Such fusion, moreover, is an emergence of different
times, places, and directions in conversation. Gadamer rightly says that to be in conversation is
to “fall into conversation,”19 which like falling in love, is an event beyond one’s control. With
this feature of conversation foregrounded in inter(con)textual, textual boundaries are thus open,
if not also crossed.20 Conversation, however, not only takes place between people or between
texts and people; it also involves the contexts of the texts and the contexts of people.
The contexts of the texts are not just about the historical backgrounds, the production,
distribution and maintenance of the texts; the tradition and history of interpretation of the texts
also influence our understanding. Similarly, the contexts of people, such as the socio-historical
location, the worldview, mood, and affect of the people are no less significant, as they are also
parts of signification. The notion of context, moreover, works both ways: it addresses our
interpretive lens and our application of such interpretation. This focus marks it very different
from the traditional notion of intertextual in biblical criticism that focuses mainly on (the surface
level of) the texts, as Tat-Siong Benny Liew contends, when he speaks about inter(con)textual
along the line of Julia Kristeva’s notion of (inter)textual analysis.21
that of a “rhizome,” which “has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing,
intermezzo.” See Gilles Deleuze, and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia.
Translated and Foreword by Brian Massumi (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 25.
19
Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method. Second, revised ed. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and
Donald G. Marshall (London; New York: Continuum, 2006). Gadamer wrote, “We say that we ‘conduct’ a
conversation, but the more genuine a conversation is, the less its conduct lies within the will of either partner. Thus
a genuine conversation is never the one that we wanted to conduct. Rather, it is generally more correct to say that
we fall into conversation, or even that we become involved in it… No one knows what will ‘come out’ in a
conversation.” Ibid., 385.
20
The permeability of boundaries shows that the otherness cannot be reduced. So even though Eagleton criticizes
Gadamer’s liberal and optimistic view of hermeneutics that presupposes the reading subjects as open minded,
educated, and ready to be transformed by conversation – which often do not correspond to the reality – womanist
literature has shown that such effort for conversation is still worthwhile and significant in the long run. See Terry
Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 79-80. Also,
see Sharon D. Welch, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, rev. ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000).
21
Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Politics of Parousia: Reading Mark Inter(con)textually (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill,
1999), 22-45.
6
Liew, however, wants to stress the role of agency of the writing and reading subject in
interpretation.22 So while he agrees with Barthes, Foucault, and Derrida that the meaning of a
text is not the sole property and right of its writer, especially when “a postmodern subject is no
longer the unified and autonomous modern subject,” 23 he finds the overemphasis on the
indeterminacy of meaning in their works problematic, as they seem to sidestep the agency of the
writing and reading subject too much.24 For Liew, Foucault’s “over-theorizing [of] the power of
domination, and under-theorizing [of] the agency of resistance” debilitate and make the subject a
“powerless pawn” in the discourse of power without being able to effect changes to the system.25
While this concern of Liew for agency of the subject in social justice is noteworthy, he
may have overstressed the role and function of “the symbolic” at the expense of “the semiotic” in
the symbolic order, using the language of Kristeva. 26 If signification includes both “the
symbolic” and “the semiotic,” then the meaning production cannot exclude either. While both
dimensions are inseparable in the generation of meaning-effects, critics like Kristeva and
semioticians like Lotman and Greimas prioritize “the semiotic” over “the symbolic,” in which
the former is pre-linguistic or apophatic and the latter is after-thought or logic of the former.
Liew wrote, “[S]ubjectivities are caught within the intertextuality of cultural, historical, and ideological
influences.” Ibid., 35. In other words, Liew’s concern lies with the power of the social position of the subject, not
with the power of the affect or the mood of the subject, whether in writing or interpreting.
23
Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Politics of Parousia, 35.
24
Philosopher José Medina, for instance, is unease with Derrida’s suggestion of the unimportance, if not irrelevance,
of the socio-historical context in interpretation, even if the text is always reiteratedly reinterpreted. See José Medina,
Language: Key Concepts in Philosophy (London; New York: Continuum, 2005), 157-67. For Derrida’s writing on
this issue, see Jacques Derrida, Margin of Philosophy. Translated, with Additional Notes, by Alan Bass (Chicago,
IL: The University of Chicago, 1982), 307-30.
25
Tat-Siong Benny Liew, Politics of Parousia, 38.
26
Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language. Translated by Margaret Waller with an introduction by Leon S.
Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984). Here I am not saying that “agency” is not important.
Coming from a colonized culture in Malaysia in which the West is always admired at the expense of one’s culture,
even though one is colonized by the West, I see “agency” important to intervene and breakthrough the pathological
effect of colonization upon the material, psychological, and somatic conditions of the people. Yet, the issue is how
to address such effect (and infection) effectively, without being caught in the structure and ideology already imposed
upon us by the colonizer and oppressor.
22
7
Some may argue that this distinction is artificial, but the point is that meaning production
includes these two aspects.
Although used to illustrate the feature of dialogue, Lotman’s conception of mirror
symmetry on the discursiveness of the meaning production can be helpful here.27 For example,
he points out that mirrors not only reflect and refract through the light and air, they also displace
images, making the familiar unfamiliar, or the unfamiliar familiar.28 What may be at the center
in one image may become marginal in another, and vice versa, not to mention the position of the
observer will make the difference as well. Greimas further maps out this meaning-making
process through his “Generative Trajectory” as he distinguishes the syntax from the semantics in
meaning productions, in which the former refers to the grammatical logic and articulation of the
semantics, whereas the latter to the raw feeling, affect, or mood in the production of meaningeffects.29 Yet, the relationship between syntax and semantics are so intermingling that we cannot
speak of one without the other. Nonetheless, because of our own context, we inevitably focus or
prioritize a certain dimension of the text over the other, and as a result, (inter)weave and invent
our own text. So even though there is only one text, we end up with multiple texts that highlight
different textual level and dimension.
It is in this kind of messy intertwining relations that I envision an inter(con)textual
interpretation of eidōlothuta and ancestor veneration, a daily ritual performed morning and
evening in many Chinese households. Now, if contradiction and ambiguity are present in ritual
Juri Lotman, “On the Semiosphere” Signs Systems Studies 33 (2005): 205-29. Translated by Wilma Clark.
The diversities and irregularities of the imageries, however, do not mean that there is no integrity; the integrity is
homologated and contextual, and thus, fluid and discursive. Ibid., 215.
29
Algirdas J. Greimas, and J. Courtés, Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary. Translated by Larry
Crist, Daniel Patte, James Lee, Edward McMahon II, Gary Phillips, and Michael Rengstorf (Bloomington, IN:
Indiana University Press, 1982), 132-34. Also, see Daniel Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts:
Greimas’s Structural Semiotics and Biblical Exegesis (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1990).
27
28
8
and inter(con)textuality, in what way our writing and reading also carry such characteristics?
When it comes to 1 Cor. 8-10, however, many scholars are not comfortable with such features.
History and Tradition of Interpretation
In a recent article Wendell Willis identifies seven areas that most biblical scholars have
agreed on so far in their analyses of 1 Cor. 8-10.30 The first three focus on the history of religion,
literary and socio-rhetoric analyses of the text to clarify the Corinthian situation and Paul’s
prohibition of eating idol food. So in regard to (1) “The Unity of 1 Corinthians 8-10;” (2) “The
Function of 1 Corinthians 9;” and (3) “Quotations from the Corinthians,” 31 while Walter
Schmithals,32 Khiok-Khng Yeo,33 and Lamar Cope34 contend that 10:1-22 does not seem to fit
the style, theme, and the setting of idol food mentioned found in 8:1-13 and 10:23-11:1, many
others posit the integrity of 1 Cor. 8-10 by prioritizing certain theme or figure through sociohistorical35 and socio-rhetorical analyses36 in light of Jewish or Greco-Roman sources. In terms
Wendell Willis, “1 Corinthians 8-10: A Retrospective after Twenty-Five Years,” Restoration Quarterly 49 (2007):
103-12.
31
Ibid., 103-06.
32
Walter Schmithals, Gnosticism in Corinth: An Investigation of the Letters to the Corinthians (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon Press, 1970). Focusing on Jewish gnostic worldview that disregards flesh and have freedom and
dominion over the demons, Schmithals finds that 8:1-13, 9:1-23, and 10:23-11:1 form a “continuous train of
thought,” while 10:1-22 “by no means fit into this connection” as it only deals with “cultic meals.” Ibid., 92ff.
33
Khiok-Khng Yeo, Rhetorical Interaction in 1 Corinthians 8 and 10: A Formal Analysis with Preliminary
Suggestions for a Chinese, Cross-Cultural Hermeneutic (Leiden, The Netherlands, Brill, 1995). Yeo finds that “1
Cor 10:1-22 is an aggadic pesher on fleeing from idolatry, while 1 Cor 8:1-13 and 10:23-11:1 are community
dialogues among Paul, the “strong,” and the “weak” over the issue of eating idol food.” Ibid., 3.
34
Lamar Cope, “First Corinthians 8-10: Continuity or Contradiction?” ATR Supplementary Series 11 (1990): 114123. He writes, “1 Corinthians 8 and 10:23 – 11:1 show every sign of being a coherent part of the main body of this
letter. But 10:1-22 is deeply suspect. The passage exhibits non-Pauline terminology and, more strikingly, Pauline
terminology used in an uncharacteristic way. It presents an ornate and flawed midrashic support unique in the
Pauline corpus. It argues a position on eating in an idol’s temple that is not supported anywhere else in the genuine
letters [...] The passage interrupts the flow of thought from 8:1-11 to 10:23 whatever one does with chapter 9 […]
the critic ought to consider seriously the likelihood that 10:1-22 is a later non-Pauline interpretation.” Ibid., 122.
35
For example, Peter D. Gooch, Dangerous Food: 1 Corinthians 8-10 in Its Context (Ontario, Canada: Canadian
Corporation for Studies in Religion/Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses by Wilfred Laurier University
Press, 1993); Alex T. Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth: Jewish Background and Pauline Legacy. JSNT 176 (Sheffield,
UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999).
36
For example, Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the
Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), 126-49; Ben Witherington III, Conflict
30
9
of (2), some see it as an exemplum or imitation (e.g. Margaret Mitchell; John Fotopoulous;37 etc.),
others as an apologia of apostolic authority (e.g. Yeo; Gordon Fee;38 etc.). Closely related to (3)
is (4) “The Reality and Possible Identity of Suggested ‘Parties’ in Corinth Related to the Topic of
Eating Sacrificial Food.” While some find the divisions hypothetical or rhetorical, 39 others
assign different social identity (whether in terms of ethnicity, religion, or status) to the “weak”
group and the postulated “strong” group.40
Besides (1)-(4), scholars study (5) “The Possible Occasions of Eating under Discussion,”
and (6) “The Nature of Pagan Religious Meals in the Greco-Roman World.” 41 Here, a
comparative study of religions, historical, and archaeological evidence become helpful. These
questions examine whether Paul was consistent in tackling the eidōlothuta issue. For examples,
in what situations did Paul forbid such partaking? Did he give different injunctions because of
the venue of eating idol food (cf. 8:10; 10:27)42? Or was he more concerned about believers’
interaction with each other? Or was Paul addressing different groups of people43 or different
situations after he left Corinth44? How was the food related to the dietary law and idolatry45?
and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge,
UK: Eerdmans, 1995).
37
John Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Reconsideration of 1 Corinthians
8:1 – 11:1 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2003), 223-27.
38
Gordon Fee, “Εἰδωλόθυτα Once Again: An Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8-10,” Biblica 61 (1980): 172-97 (19192).
39
John C. Hurd, The Origin of 1 Corinthians (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1983), 124-25. Also, Peter D.
Gooch, Dangerous Food, 61-68.
40
For an overview, see Richard Liong-Seng Phua, Idolatry and Authority: A Study of 1 Corinthians 8.1-11.1 in the
Light of the Jewish Diaspora (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 1-28.
41
Wendell Willis, “1 Corinthians 8-10,” 107-09.
42
For a recent discussion on this issue using historical and archaeological evidence, see John Fotopoulos, Food
Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth, 49-178.
43
For a short summary on different views, see Derek Newton, Deity and Diet: The Dilemma of Sacrificial Food at
Corinth. JSNT Supplement Series 169 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 387-90.
44
Bruce W. Winter, “Kosher Food and Idol Meat (1 Corinthians 10:25-28),” in After Paul Left Corinth: The
Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 287-301.
45
For example, some scholars argue that the Apostolic Decree in Acts 15 underlie Paul’s prohibition. See C. K.
Barrett, “Thing Sacrificed to Idols,” New Testament Studies 11 (1965): 138-53 (150); John Hurd, The Origin of 1
Corinthians, 253-70; Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, 190-91.
10
And if the food was sacrificial meat, how much did the non-elite have access46? What was the
religio-political implication of such food in the context of the Roman imperial cult47? Was food
used to mark social identity? Perhaps more importantly, what was Paul’s conception of idolatry
in 1 Cor. 8-10, especially if the term eidōlothuton “is a Jewish Christian term, possibly coined by
Paul himself”48? The issue becomes more complex, if not more perplexing, when “all extant
sources in early Christianity which discuss the issue oppose idol meat.” 49 While 1 Cor. 10:14-22
indicates such strong opposition, 8:1-13 and 10:23-33 seem to portray a different picture.
To address this puzzle, Alex Cheung, for example, focuses more on Jewish sources and
argues that “Paul, in the matter of idol food at least, was reconciled to his Jewish background and
Christian legacy” in forbidding the eating of idol food.50 Not unlike the casuistic laws in the
legal codes in the Hebrew Bible, exceptions were only made when one did not know that the
food was idol food.51 Also focusing on Jewish sources, Richard Liong-Seng Phua disagrees,
however;52 he argues that Jewish perception of idolatry is not homogeneous. Alluding to the
work of Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, he agrees that idolatry is a dialectical construct
that reveals “a community self-definition through its idea of what is excluded and through its
Gerd Theissen, “The Strong and the Weak in Corinth: A Sociological Analysis of a Theological Quarrel.” In The
Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1982), 121-44. Meggitt,
however, argues against Theissen that it was not difficult for the non-elite to have access to meat. See Justin J.
Meggitt, “Meat Consumption and Social Conflict in Corinth,” Journal of Theological Studies 45 (1994): 137-41.
47
Bruce W. Winter, “The Imperial Cult, the Games, and Dining in a Temple (1 Corinthians 8-10:21),” in After Paul
Left Corinth, 269-86.
48
Derek Newton, Deity and Diet, 179-83. Alex T. Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 319; Ben Witherington, Conflict
and Community in Corinth, 189. Cheung and Witherington disagree on the connotation of the term, in particular the
location of the consumption of idol food.
49
John C. Brunt, “Rejected, Ignored, or Misunderstood? The Fate of Paul’s Approach to the Problem of Food
Offered to Idols in Early Christianity.” New Testament Studies 31 (1985): 113-24 (120). Brunt surmises that Paul’s
position was “unique in early Christianity” and that “While at no point is his approach explicitly rejected, it is first
ignored and later misunderstood.” Ibid., 121.
50
Alex Cheung, Idol Food in Corinth, 299. Cheung further writes, “Paul’s logic is Jewish monotheistic logic. It is
no accident that underlying Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 8-19 are classic passages in the Torah against eating
idol food, Deuteronomy 32 and Numbers 25. Not only is Paul’s theological framework that of the Jewish Scriptures,
but his practical instructions also have the unmistakable stamp of the biblical legal rulings.” Ibid., 300.
51
Ibid., 301-02.
52
Richard Liong-Seng Phua, Idolatry and Authority, 26.
46
11
notions of ‘the other.’”53 As idolatry, for Halbertal and Margalit, is a category tied to one’s
conception of “God,”54 which changed throughout history,55 they contend that “it is a mistake to
articulate an account of what is the essential content of idolatry.”56
Using this hermeneutical lens, Phua argues that as “different Jews could adopt different
definitions and so carve out spaces for themselves,”57 some may be accused of idolatry because
of different definitions that people adopt. Halbertal and Margalit list four conceptions of idolatry.
“The first opposes the alien gods, the ‘other gods, to Israel’s own God, the God who took Israel
out of Egypt.” 58 In this definition, idolatry is portrayed in (I) a patriarchal metaphor of
marriage59 and (II) a military metaphor where God is seen as a political leader. In (I), idolatry
defines believers as unfaithful wife when they abandon God and worship other gods. In (II),
idolatry is about rebelling against God’s rule. This use of metaphor brings us to the next
definition about proper representation of “the true and right God.” The authors list three types of
representations: (1) similarity-based; (2) metonymic; and (3) conventional representations.60
As the word indicates, (1) similarity-based representation refers to a representation that
resembles what it tries to (re)present. Biblical tradition forbids this kind of representation. (2)
Metonymic representation, on the other hand, is allowed, as the metaphorical representation,
53
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry. Translated by Naomi Goldblum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1992), 236. Note, however, the “othering” of the other in the work of Halbertal and Margalit is not
about different groups within the same group, as Phua seeks to do.
54
Ibid., 1.
55
For example, see Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. 2nd
edition. Foreword by Patrick D. Miller (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002).
56
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, 241.
57
Richard Liong-Seng Phua, Idolatry and Authority, 201-02.
58
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, 241.
59
I highlight the word “marriage” as the conception of “marriage” in the Hebrew Bible is different from that of the
Modern West. See Athalya Brenner, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative
(Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994).
60
Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, 37-66. Here, Halbertal and Margalit refer to the semiotic work
of Charles S. Peirce, “The Icon, Index, and Symbol,” in Collected Papers. Vol. 8. Edited by Charles Hartshorne
and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931-1958).
12
from a semiotic perspective, is much more nuanced and dynamic than the one-to-one
correspondence in (1).61 The boundary between (1) and (2), however, is fluid because (1) can
become (2), and vice versa, when the representation is fossilized and mistaken as (the) what or
who it seeks to (re)present. In terms of (3) conventional representation, it refers to representation
that is formed and taken for granted because of one’s custom and norm.
Although Halbertal and Margalit use linguistic to illustrate metaphor and representation
at the cognitive level of idolatry, they argue that this second type of idolatry can be internalized
and lead to the third type of idolatry when one misrecognizes “an aspect of God, or an
intermediary power, to the supreme God.”62 As a result, even if one worships the “true and right
God,” but because of one’s wrong belief, one can end up with a wrong worship (the fourth type
of idolatry). Phua summarizes, “if a worshipper intends the right kind of worship to the wrong
god (or alien cult), it is considered idolatry. Similarly, if one intends the wrong kind of worship
to the true God, it is equally considered to be idolatry. This leads us to the question of what or
who constitutes the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ God.”63 This question of intention is significant because
now the textual analysis no longer focuses on the surface of the text. It moves deeper than
“behind the text” dimension of 1 Cor. 8-10 that focuses on the socio-historical background of the
text. Here, the analysis delves into the world of the text in terms of how one value is associated
with another value paradigmatically; that is, how the notions of “idol” and “idol food” are related
to the notions of love, knowledge, and freedom in 1 Cor. 8-10.
They write, “Metonymic representations are permitted because they do not lead to error in the conception of God,
as they do not represent him by being similar to him. Moreover, God is not revealed in a metonymic representation
to the degree that he is in one based on similarity. An image of God is not the same as his chariot, if the intention is
to prevent direct exposure of the image of God himself.” Moshe Halbertal and Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, 48.
62
Ibid., 241.
63
Richard Liong-Seng Phua, Idolatry and Authority, 32.
61
13
Phua, however, focuses on the “surface of the text,” as his use of the work of Halbertal
and Margalit aims to explain how “the strong” could believe in “the true and right God” and yet
be idolatrous. He writes, “Conceptually the ‘strong’ are idolatrous in the sense that they have
thought the true God to be same as the god/s pagans worship. Further, by accusing them of
sharing in the table of δαιμόνια, Paul accuses the ‘strong’ of confusing the true God with
‘demons.’”64 In the end, Phua seeks to formulate a consistent ethics of Paul, a move that Willis
finds in most works on 1 Cor. 8-10, that is, “The Norms and Warrants Expressed by Paul in
Response to the Situation in Corinth”65 (this is the seventh major area that Willis suggests). As
such, the issue of “idolatry” in terms of metaphor, metonym, and representation is only to show
that idolatry can be understood differently by different people. The ambiguity and ambivalence
in the text and context are not sustained but are treated as problematic that needs to be clarified
and fixed. Derek Newton, on the other hand, focuses more on the Greco-Roman sources on the
notions of image and idol, idol food and communal meal.
Insisting that these terms have a wide range of “ambiguities, boundary problems and
conceptual fluidity,” Newton argues that we cannot define “precisely what constituted idolatry
and worship in such complicated contexts.” 66 What we can be sure about, however, is that 1
Ibid., 204. He concludes, “Paul view idolatry as an act that is contrary to the biblical ancestral tradition, a
rebellious act that involves partnership with δαιμόνια and breaks partnership with the Lord, an unloving act that can
possibly cause a ‘weaker’ fellow believer to fall, an act that reflects spiritual indiscipline that invites God’s wrath
and the possible loss of eschatological salvation.” Ibid., 205.
65
Wendell Willis, “1 Corinthians 8-10,” 103-10. For example, Horrell writes, “Paul’s method of responding to this
particular ethical dilemma [concerning idol food], indirect though it may be on the specific question as issue, makes
the passage more relevant than it might otherwise have been to the broader issues concerning that shape and
foundations of Christian ethics.” See David Horrell, “Theological Principle or Christological Praxis? Pauline Ethics
in 1 Corinthians 8.1-11.1.” JSNT 67 (1997): 83-114 (83).
66
Derek Newton, Deity and Diet, 384 (for both quotes). From his nine years of ministry experiences living and
working with the Trojanese ethnic group in Indonesia in the island of Sulawesi, Newton finds that similar situations
of various beliefs and practices can also be detected among the young believers in Roman Corinth. Thus he writes,
“Paul faced the enormous and intractable dilemma that individual interpretation yielded a whole range of answers to
that question ‘What is idolatry?’ It was not a case or any one person or group being clearly right and the other
totally wrong. ‘Idolatry’ was not a fixed or absolute concept for the Corinthian believers and the difficulty of
64
14
Cor. 8-10 is a unit, with 1 Cor. 8 about Paul’s forbidding idol food in the temple and 1 Cor. 10:122 about idolatry and the officials, not attendees, participating in the sacrificial offerings.67 In
facing diverse individual opinions and trying to reconcile different groups, Paul was thus left
with no choice but to tackle the idol food issue “partly at the level of praxis but mostly at the
level of attitude.”68 It is under such circumstances that Paul resorts to love and consideration for
other to deal with ambiguity. Newton, however, does not illustrate how love, knowledge,
freedom, and consideration for other work in Paul’s dealing with the idol food issue.
From this short overview of different issues, approaches, and solutions to the questions
asked in 1 Cor. 8-10, we see how different scholars, because of their questions and concerns,
focus on different dimensions of the text. Some on the surface of the text to examine the source,
form, and syntax of the text; whereas others on behind the text to clarify the sociopolitical,
religious, and economic aspect of the text; and still others on in front of the text to illustrate the
socio-rhetorical effects of the text upon the audience. This different focus shows the discursive
process of textualization in one’s choice of certain aspects of the text, certain contextual concern,
and certain (hermeneutical) approach, even if one does not make such choice making explicit in
her/his interpretation. One aspect that we find lacking in this review, however, is the emphasis
on the ideological aspect of the text and context of interpretation, especially if idol food is
closely related to the patron-client power relations in Roman imperial cult.69
defining its boundaries was compounded and complicated to nightmare proportions by the existence of genuine
ambiguities, by boundary problems and by conceptual differences in people’s minds.” Ibid., 395.
67
Ibid., 390ff.
68
Ibid., 387. “I accept that Paul emphasized communal considerations because of his desire to strengthen the whole
church in the face of current disputes and divisions, but I contend that the idol food issue, with its range of
intractable individual interpretations, compelled the apostle to adopt the only track and track possible namely the use
of a wide variety of arguments each of which opposed the individual that dogged this food issue.” Ibid., 393.
69
For scholars who have touched upon the subject matter, see Simon R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman
Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984); John K. Chow, Patronage and Power:
A Study of Social Networks in Corinth. JSNT 75 (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1992).
15
Another observation that we can glean from this review is that the idol food issue is still a
major concern that affects many Christians in Asian cultures. It is thus helpful when Phua draws
our attention to the different conceptions of idolatry. According to Halbertal and Margalit,
idolatry as a constructed category does not have fixed essential features; rather it is often used to
exclude, if not demonize, the other who threaten the identity of the group. For many Chinese
Christians, this labeling and demonization goes beyond rhetoric. In a Chinese worldview in
which the visible and invisible worlds form a continuum spectrum, the existence and power of
invisible forces and entities are too real to discount as superstitious.70 It is not a surprise that
Chinese will take the demonic power in idol food alluded in 1 Cor. 10:14-22 at its face value.
The issue, however, is that do Chinese, 1 Cor. 8-10, and biblical scholars refer to the same
conception of idolatry? Do they share the same notions of “God” and “religion,” which scholars
pointed out are reified categories to identify “the primitive other” in the so-called “underdeveloped” and “undeveloped” countries and cultures?71 Moreover, if the notions of “God” and
“religion” in Chinese cultures are different from those in the West,72 then a Western-oriented
interpretation of 1 Cor. 8-10 cannot be uncritically applied to any (Chinese) context, as many
70
It is important to note that this worldview is also very Pauline, see Kabiro wa Gatumu, The Pauline Concept of
Supernatural Powers: A Reading from the African Worldview. Foreword by James D. G. Dunn. Paternoster Biblical
Monographs (Milton Keynes, UK; Colorado Springs, CO (US); India: Paternoster, 2008). Walter Wink also finds
that the biblical worldview considers “the seen” and “the unseen” worlds a “single continuum” where “spiritual
beings were as much at home as humans.” See Walter Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the
New Testament. Vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 15.
71
For example, see Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India, and ‘The Mystic East’
(London and New York: Routledge, 1999). Also, Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How
European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (London and Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2005).
72
For a detailed analysis of the similarities and differences in the category of “religion” in Chinese and Western
worldview, see Robert Ford Campany, “On the Very Idea of Religions (In the Modern West and in Early Medieval
China),” History of Religions, Vol. 42, No. 4 (May 2003): 287-319. Although Campany focuses on early medieval
China, the metaphors used to describe “religion” in Chinese culture are very helpful. For a recent study on the
notion of religion in China, see the articles in Social Scientific Studies of Religion in China: Methodology, Theories,
and Findings. Edited by Fenggang Yang and Graeme Lang (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill, 2011).
16
Chinese Christian commentators tend to do.73 Indeed, just as “Israelite religion is an ancestral
tradition in the sense that it began as a family belief which gradually grew to become
institutionalized, climaxing in the written code of the Torah,”74 so are Chinese religions.75 And
speaking of “Israelite religion,” a review of the notions of “god,” “image” and “idol,” and
“sacrifice” and “ritual” in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern artifacts should warn us
about their complexity, ambiguity, and ambivalence.76 After all, no religions would call their
deity and gods “idol”! The Mesopotamia mīs pȋ or “mouth-washing” ritual is a case in point.
Christopher Walker and Michael Dick point out that a statue is only a “dead product of human
artisans” if it is not enlivened by a ritual called mīs pȋ: “‘This statue cannot smell incense, drink
water, or eat food without the Opening of the Mouth!’”77 Here “mouth” is obviously a vital
orifice that signifies the livingness of a statue, not unlike the “eye” of a Chinese statue that needs
to be “en-lightened.”78 The Mesopotamians, however, do more.
73
For examples, see the many articles written by Chinese Christian pastors and scholars in Christian Alternatives to
Ancestor Practices (祖先崇拜问题 ). Edited by Bong Ring Ro (Taiwan: Asia Theological Association, 1985).
74
Richard Liong-Seng Phua, Idolatry and Authority, 34.
75
The importance of religion, including “ancestor veneration,” in the integration of Chinese family and society is
well attested by sociologists and anthropologists; given the one-child policy in Mainland China in which the child
become the center of attention, some are even concern that the increasing disregard for “ancestor veneration” can
lead to disrespect for Chinese elders in the society. See Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, The Religious
Question in Modern China (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 225-38. Also, C. K.
Yang, Religion in Chinese Society: A Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their
Historical Factors (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1961).
76
For discussion on the image, icon, and representation of deity in Ancient Near East, see Neal H. Walls, ed., Cult
Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East (Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research,
2005); Barry M. Gittlen, ed., Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2002); Karel van der Toorn, ed., The Image and the Book: Iconic Cults, Aniconism, and the Rise of
Book Religion in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1997).
77
Christopher Walker and Michael B. Dick, “The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The
Mesopotamia mīs pȋ Ritual,” in Michael B. Dick, ed., Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult
Image in the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1999), 55-121 (114).
78
In his recent research, James Robson finds many Chinese statues from Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) in Hunan
province have medicines, incantations, sacred texts, insects, etc. inserted into the head and back of the statues.
While some speculate that these items may empower the statues, some venture that they are actually used by the
statues themselves. James Robson, “Asian Images Inside-Out: What the Contents of Icons Can Tell Us about
Domestic and Communal Religion in China,” a lecture at Vanderbilt University on September 29, 2011.
17
Ritual attempts to dissociate the cult image from human artisans are very
developed in both the Babylonian and the Nineveh ritual tables of mīs pȋ. There
the artisans have their hands “cut off” with a wooden tamarisk sword while
swearing that they did not make the image but that their respective craft deities
had. The tools are wrapped in the body of a sacrificed sheep and thrown into the
river to denote a return to Nudimmud (Ea), the craft god.79
It is not insignificant that people were so concerned with “idol” that they would even ritually and
symbolically have their hands cut off and the tools used to craft the statue thrown into the river to
signify that the “enlivened statue” was not human made. Given this idol anxiety, we cannot
simply conclude that any statue or representation of the divine is idolatrous. It will thus be
helpful to see how Paul defines idolatry in his value system so that we may get a bigger picture
of how it fits with his other concepts such as love, consideration for others, freedom, etc.
Religious Dimension of the Text: A Structural Semiotic Analysis
From the beginning of his correspondence with the Corinthian believers, Paul stresses the
centrality of God through Christ Jesus in their calling. It was in God that the Corinthian
believers were enriched in every way with every logos and every gnosis (1:5). It was God who
chose and made the foolish in the world wise, the weak strong, etc. (1:27-28). People may have
done great things in preaching the gospel, but in the end, it was God who made things grow (3:5).
In fact, whatever people do, they should do it on the foundation of Christ (3:11); they should
realize that everything belongs to God (1:30; cf. 3:21-23) and whatever they have, they received
it from God (4:7). In a group-oriented honor-and-shame cultural value, this intimate relationship
of God and Christ with the believers is significant because whatever the believers do, they will
also affect the honor of God and Christ. As Bruce Malina underlines, in ancient Mediterranean
world, individuals “define themselves rather exclusively in terms of the groups in which they
79
Christopher Walker and Michael B. Dick, “The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia,” 114.
18
[are] embedded”80 to the extent that members within the same group even “owe loyalty, respect,
and obedience of a kind which commits their individual honor without limit and without
compromise.” 81 Thus, when Paul heard that the believers formed their own groups in the
ekklēsia, probably constituted of about fifty people or so, 82 he was devastated: “Is Christ divided?
Was Paul crucified for you or into the name of Paul were you baptized?” (1:13) If God and
Christ were the head of the ekklēsia, how could the believers make such decision! If whoever
they are and whatever they have received come from God through Christ, they should then rely
on God. By forming their own groups, they disregard God and Christ; not only do they dishonor
each other, they also shame God and Christ! In fact, how can they even belong to two opposing
groups and share the cup and the table of the Lord and of the demons at the same time (10:21)!
This centering on God and Christ is also prominent in 1 Cor. 8-10. Paul writes, “for to
our benefit, there is one God, the Father, out of from all things exist and for whom we exist, and
there is one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom all things exist and through whom we exist” (8:6).
If this was a Corinthian slogan, then the confession becomes ironic, since it talks about centering
on God and Christ! The metaphor of bread in 10:17 is also apt: “because there is one bread, we
who are many are one body, for we all share from the one bread.” If the believers share from the
same bread, then they manifest the result of such sharing. A bad manifestation shows that the
source is bad, which then means that God and Christ are bad. Hence on the idol food issue,
when Paul writes that “the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (10:26), he asks the believers
to honor and rely on God and Christ. This reliance on God and Christ seems to be a theme that
80
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Kentucky: Westminster John
Knox Press, 1993), 41.
81
Ibid., 45.
82
This is a number from Murphy-O’Connor’s assessment about how many people can a residence accommodate in a
meal gathering setting. See Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 182-93.
19
Paul highlights in a complete discourse unit of 1 Cor. 8-10, which, from the perspective of
structural semiotics, is confirmed in the inverted parallelisms of 1 Cor. 8:1-2 and 10:31-11:1.83
Once a complete discourse unit is identified, not only can we examine the value and idea in the
unit to make tentative conclusion about certain aspect of Paul’s conviction, we can also study
how inverted parallelisms show Paul’s effort in trying to transform his audience’s conviction.
For example, in 1 Cor. 8-11:1, we first notice that a self-oriented, active and confident
stance in 8:1-2 is inverted to a God-and-Christ-focused and other-oriented in 10:31-11:1.
Whether Paul was quoting the Corinthian slogan in 8:1 when he writes that “we know that we all
have gnosis,” his further qualification that “gnosis puffs up, but love builds up” (8:1c) is
supported by 8:2-3. In 8:2, Paul not only stresses the limit of one’s ability to know and changes
self-orientation to God-orientation in relation to gnosis; he also ties gnosis to love: “But if
anyone loves God, this person is known by him” (8:3). Note that the active voice becomes
passive, from having gnosis to being known. This change underscores that gnosis comes from
God. This inversion makes sense, as Paul reiterated that it is from God through Christ that the
believers received everything. The passivity of gnosis, however, is now characterized by the
activity of love (8:3a), which then is also God-oriented and other-oriented, as Paul writes that he
tries to please all people in everything for the benefit of many so that they may be saved (10:33).
So while Paul in the beginning of the discourse unit agrees that gnosis is important, he changes
the orientation of gnosis from activity to passivity in terms of loving God (8:3). This Godoriented gnosis is then developed to an otherness-orientation in the end of the discourse unit.
If this focus on God and Christ through the theme of otherness is Paul’s main point, then
we should be able to find this pattern in the pairs of opposition actions in 1 Cor. 8-10, as Paul
83
Daniel Patte, Structural Exegesis for New Testament Critics (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1990), 9-22.
20
would not want to be unclear in conveying his convictions!84 Pairs of opposition of actions
would make sure a clear communication. Altogether there are seven pairs of oppositions.85
Given the scope of this paper, we will only focus on the opposition actions at the dialogic level
of the discourse.86 First: 8:4-6 vs. 8:7. While 8:4-6 says that having gnosis about the “nonexistence” of idol and the power of God and Christ is positive, 8:7 shows that not having such
knowledge can cause harm and loss to oneself.
At the same time, however, such gnosis
emphasizes our dependence on God, since it is for God and through Christ that we exist! Second:
8:9b, 10a vs. 8:9c, 11a. While 8:9b, 10a says that those who have such gnosis use this right or
authority (exousia) to eat in an idol’s temple (eidōleiō), 8:9c, 11a says that those whose
conscience (syneidēsis) are weak will not be edified (oikodomēthēsetai) if they see the former
reclining in the idol’s temple. Hence, even though gnosis is informative, those who have gnosis
can bring either right to themselves or destruction to those who have no such gnosis. Third: 8:13
vs. 8:9-11a. When Paul writes that if food can scandalize people he will not eat (8:13), he
contrasts his concern with those having gnosis who, as a result of eating, cause the weak to be
destroyed by such gnosis (8:9-11a). Note that in 8:13, not only can food scandalize the weak,
people can also scandalize. Here, the focus is on not causing scandal. Thus in the end of the
discourse, Paul urges the believers to eat and drink for the glory of God (10:31).
84
Ibid., 23-32.
The following twenty pairs of oppositions of actions are at the narrative or warranting level: (1) 8:1c vs. 8:7a; (2)
8:1e vs. 8:1d; (3) 8:3 vs. 8:2; (4) 8:6 vs. 8:5; (5) 9:2b vs. 9:2a; (6) 9:9, 10b vs. 9:9; (7) 9:10a vs. 9:9; (8) 9:12b, 15a
vs. 9:12a, 10b, 14; (9) 9:15c vs. 9:15d; (10) 9:16b vs. 9:16a, c; (11) 9:17b vs. 9:17a; (12) 9:18b vs. 9:18c; (13) 9:25c
vs. 9:25b; (14) 9:26a vs. 9:26b; (15) 9:27a vs. 9:27b; (16) 10:13a vs. 10:13a; (17) 10:3-4 vs. 10:8-10; (18) 10:16-18,
20b vs. 10:20a; (19) 10:23b, d vs. 10:23a, c; and (20) 10:33a vs. 10:5, 7, 33b.
86
As Patte explains, while structural semiotic analyses of a narrative/story and of a didactic discourse are similar,
the latter requires several more steps of analysis to first distinguish the narrative level from the dialogic level in the
discourse. Here, the narrative level, in general, serves as a warrant to the argument and development of the dialogic
level, which as the name indicates, is about Paul’s conversation with the addressee. Once these two levels are
distinguished, one can then analyze each level as one would do with any structural semiotic analysis of a story. For
details, see Daniel Patte, “Method for a Structural Exegesis of Didactic Discourses: Analysis of 1 Thessalonians,” in
Semeia 26 (1983): 85-136.
85
21
Fourth: 10:13c vs. 10:9a. While 10:13c says that God is faithful and does not give
exceeding temptation (peirasmos), 10:9a admonishes believers to not tempt (ekpeirazein) the
Lord. The test that God gives to believers is common to people (anthrōpinos); but the test that
people give to the Lord is rebellion, grumbling, evil desire, and crime. Fifth: 10:21a vs. 10:21a.
When Paul warns the believers to not drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the demons, and to
not share the table of the Lord and the table of demons (10:21a), he forbids them to receive both
cups and tables, as if they owe their allegiance to both the Lord and the demons. To do so is to
confuse the Lord with the demons, and hence, shame the Lord! Sixth: 10:24b vs. 10:24a. While
Paul urges the believers to seek the thing of the other (10:24b), he tells them to not seek their
own thing (10:24a). In other words, the believers should act for the sake of the other. Seventh:
10:28-29 vs. 10:25, 27. In 10:28-29, Paul stresses that the believers should not eat idol food for
the sake of other’s conscience, while 10:25, 27 tell us that the believers, because of their
supposedly “strong” conscience, eat the idol food.
In these pairs of opposition of actions, we find that when one does not consider the other,
mishaps happen: the right and authority to eat idol food from certain gnosis becomes a stumbling
block to the weak (8:9); those who are weak in conscience are not edified but destroyed (8:1011); people were destroyed when they over test God in their evil desires, idolatry, crime, and
grumbling (10:6-10); and people enrage the Lord when they share the demon’s cup and demon’s
table (10:21). Hence in the first pair of oppositions (8:4-6 vs. 8:7) and the last two pairs of
oppositions (10:24b vs. 10:24a; 10:28-29 vs. 10:25, 27), which do not mention clearly the
consequence of not considering the other as the other four pairs just listed, Paul underscores the
importance of an otherness-orientation, founded upon God through Christ.
22
In light of these pairs of oppositions of actions, we can qualify further the descriptions of
the subject who does the action and the receiver who is transformed by such action. 87 For
example, when 8:9b, 10a say that those who have gnosis use their right or authority (exousia) to
eat in an idol’s temple (eidōleiō), we see that the problem is not gnosis per se. While gnosis
gives power to some to eat, it can also give destruction to “the weak” (8:9c, 11a). Thus, Paul
focuses not on whether one should eat the idol food or not. Rather, Paul is stressing the power of
gnosis. Gnosis can definitely empower some to not be under the power and authority of idol, but
it can also impart negative power onto “the weak.” This notion of authority or power (exousia)
is noteworthy. Halbertal and Margalit have already pointed out the power of internalization of
belief in practice. This intermingling relationship between belief and practice is also evident in
our discussion of power and ritual. Thus, it is crucial to not disregard idol as a superstition, as if
gnosis can simply dispel the power of idol.88 Gnosis is more than cognitive; it has power effects!
Just as Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Pierre Bourdieu have reminded us that our perception and
knowledge of self and the world are always embodied,89 Dale Martin, in his reading of GrecoRoman literatures, also cautions us to not impose a Cartesian notion of a constructed dichotomy
between mind and body, nature and culture, visible and invisible onto the biblical text. 90 Not
unlike the Chinese, the material and the immaterial worlds in the ancient time are a continuum
spectrum. Thus 8:7 is particularly suggestive when it says that “But not in everyone is the gnosis;
87
For details, see Daniel Patte and Aline Patte, Structural Exegesis: From Theory to Practice: Exegesis of Mark 15
and 16: Hermeneutical Implications (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1978), 61-92.
88
At the same time, I am also not trying to just contrast 8:4, (probably a Corinthian slogan) that says that an idol in
the world is nothing, with 8:5, which indicates that there are so-called gods in heaven or on earth and indeed there
are many gods and many lords (cf. 10:19-21).
89
See n. 24.
90
For example, see Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 329.
23
some by custom or habit (synētheia) of idol until now eat as if it is idol food, and their
conscience (syneidēsis) being weak is defiled.”
Notice how Paul speaks about gnosis and habit: it is because of custom or habit that some
eat food as if (ὡς) eating idol food. This ambiguous and perhaps also ambivalent language of “as
if” shows the power of idol in terms of habit which, with and without our awareness, defines our
perceptions of the world.91 Identifying the Corinthian worldview with that of Hellenistic Jewish
philosophy in the works of Philo, Richard Horsley even suggests that conscience (syneidēsis) is
the “convicting consciousness [which] is part of the nature of the soul as created by God.”92 For
Paul too, Horsley argues that conscience “clearly means one’s inner consciousness or awareness,
and not ‘conscience’ in the modern sense of the English word.”93 This language of conviction
and inner consciousness is intertwined with habit and custom because too often our custom and
habit, like our conviction, are self-evident. It is like a worldview or ideology that calls us and
interpellates us as such and such, as Louis Althusser would say.94 So, the primary issue is not
whether idol exists or not (8:4); it is about the power of idol and habit, in which gnosis is part of
such power. Thus even though one may propagate gnosis about “idol in the world is nothing
91
In several articles on the relations of sophia with gnosis, conscience, freedom, authority, and the pneumatikos,
Richard Horsley tries to paint a Corinthian worldview, which for him, was not unlike that of Hellenistic Jewish
philosophy in the works of Philo, that sees sophia as the content and means of salvation given to those (the
pneumatikos, that is, the heavenly anthropos) who have attained certain gnosis. It is this gnosis that empowers the
pneumatikos to have strong conscience and to not be affected by sins and mortality. See Richard Horsley,
“Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos Distinctions of Spiritual Status among the Corinthians,” Harvard Theological Review
69 (July-October 1976): 269-88; “Wisdom of Word and Words of Wisdom in Corinth,” The Catholic Biblical
Quarterly 39 (1977): 224-39; “‘How Can Some of You Say that There Is No Resurrection of the Dead?’ Spiritual
Elitism in Corinth,” Novum Testamentum 20 (1978): 203-31; “Consciousness and Freedom among the Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 8-10,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 (1978): 574-89; and “Gnosis in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 8:16,” New Testament Studies 27 (1980-81): 32-51.
92
Richard Horsley, “Consciousness and Freedom among the Corinthians,” 582.
93
Ibid., 581.
94
Althusser argues that we are “always-already interpellated by ideology as subjects” (50) in the sense that “the
existence of ideology and the hailing or interpellation of individuals as subjects are one and the same thing” (49).
See Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation),” in Essays on
Ideology (London: Verso, 1984).
24
(οὐδέν)” and that “there is no God but one” (8:4), there are still so-called gods and many lords
(8:5), not to mention eating idol food is partaking of the cup and the table of demons (10:19-21)!
The ontological question of οὐδέν aside, when Paul writes that “some in custom to idol until now
eat food as if it is idol food” (8:7), he reminds us that even if an idol is not ontologically real, it
can nonetheless felt to be real or seem to be real, as semiotics and phenomenology have shown
us.95 Thus Paul mentions about the so-called gods and many lords (8:5) as well as the demons
(10:20-21). For Paul, idol and idol food certainly have power over people. But such power is
οὐδέν or invalid when one focuses and lives for God through Christ.
The freedom and power in God through Christ, however, come with a response to one’s
confession. That is, freedom is the result of one’s response to the power and favor of God, as
well as a response to others whom Christ died for. Though in this paper we have not referred to
1 Cor. 9,96 we can see it as an example of such responsibility. Thus, the gnosis mentioned in the
confession is not so much about having gnosis; it is about the response of focusing on God and
Christ and staying within their power, because believers exist for God through Christ (8:6)! So
while the believers may display the power and authority of God and Christ as surpassing those of
the idols when they eat at an idol’s temple (8:9-10), they may end up testing the Lord and not
honoring God (10:9ff). There is no need to intentionally display such power and authority,
especially when such acts can sin against those whom Christ died for (8:11-12). Rather, they
should be mindful of God and Christ (8:6). So in honoring God and Christ, Paul says that he will
never eat meat if such eating scandalizes believers (8:13); to eat idol food is not only arrogant
For example, see Timothy B. Cargal, “The Generative Trajectory in Certain Non-Western Cultures,” in Daniel
Patte, The Religious Dimensions of Biblical Texts: Greimas’s Structural Semiotics and Biblical Exegesis (Atlanta,
GA: Scholars Press, 1990), 265-75.
96
As indicated in n. 85, the verses in 1 Cor. 9 are in the narrative or warranting level of the discourse, but for the
scope of this paper, I only focus on the dialogic level.
95
25
but also mindless of God and Christ. The believers forget that everything comes from God,
including the power of gnosis. It is not gnosis but God who bestows the power (cf. 8:8). Thus
Paul exhorts the believers to be alert: “Therefore the one who thinks that s/he can stand, let
her/him watch out so that s/he does not fall” (10:12). This language is similar to 8:2, “If anyone
thinks that s/he knows something, s/he does not yet know as /she ought to know.” As discussed
before, such attitude and behavior show that the believers think that they are in control, instead
of God. But Paul urges them to watch out: not just the overconfident, but also the “weak” so that
they may know that as God is the source of all things, God will not allow people to be tested
beyond what they can handle but will provide a way out for them to endure (10:13).
Now if God is pistos, a word which has a wide range of sociopolitical, economic, and
religious connotations,97 then how can the believers not be pistoi, that is, be faithful, obedient,
trusting, and understanding? If God cares for the believers in making sure that they can bear the
tests and not be overtaken (10:13), how can they seek their own good without caring for God and
others (10:24)? This self-centeredness becomes outrageous when some even partake of the cups
and the table of the Lord and the demons (10:20-21)! There is no pistos relationship. There are
no faithfulness, obedience, reliance, and trusting on the part of some of the believers. They just
take advantage of God for their own benefits. But as 10:26 tells us, “for the earth is of the Lord
and everything in it,” so whatever one does, and in this case on the issue of sacrificial food, one
needs to recognize God as the source of everything. Thus when Paul says in 10:30, “If I partake
with gratitude (charis), why am I blasphemed for what I am giving thanks (eucharistein)?” To
Eugene Teselle and Daniel Patte have helpfully pointed out at least six connotations of faith: (1) “faith as
faithfulness;” (2) “faith as trust;” (3) “faith as believing a speaker’s words (‘believing that’);” (4) “faith, knowledge,
understanding, and reason,” (5) “faith as movement toward, and experience of, God;” and (6) “faith as gift.” See
Eugene Teselle and Daniel Patte, “Faith,” in The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity. Edited by Daniel Patte
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 406-07. Also, see Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading
Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008).
97
26
partake with gratitude, however, implies that one acknowledges that one has received something
from the other; otherwise why would one give thanks? It is this acknowledgment of God’s favor
that believers should orient their eating and drinking (cf. 10:31).
To summarize, Paul’s handling of the idol food issue hinges upon believers’ confession
of God and the Lord as their only God and Lord (8:4-6). It is with this acknowledgment that idol
in the world is nothing, worthless, meaningless, and invalid. Hence when Paul addresses the
issue of idol food, he first frames it within an orientation of God and Christ, and then, stresses
one’s responsibility in response to God’s power and favor.
Chinese Ancestor Veneration and Idol Food
Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the
living.
– Jaroslav Pelikan98
Thus far I have avoided using “ancestor worship;” instead I used ancestor veneration,
even though the Chinese character 祭祖 (ji-zu) are closer in translation to ancestor worship. This
avoidance is intentional. As we have briefly noted, Chinese and Western Christian categories of
“God” and “religion,” in which we dialectically derive our notion of “idol,” are very different.
The Chinese, for example, hold that everything (material and immaterial) is made of Qi (breath
or energy). There is no dichotomy between the visible and invisible worlds. Rather, they are a
continuum where (1) yin-yang (a dynamic complementary system); (2) heaven-earth-humanity (a
triadic verticality); (3) five phases (wood; fire; earth; metal; and water); and (4) nine fields or
palaces (horizontal division system) form the essential components for correlative thoughts in
Chinese worldview. Hence, gods, ancestors, and ghosts are not ontologically different from
98
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaroslav_Pelikan (accessed November 11, 2011). For details, see Jaroslav Pelikan,
The Vindication of Tradition (The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities) (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1984).
27
human beings. 99 The importance of correlative thoughts is difficult to overstate because for
Chinese, everything is indeed closely intertwined. For example, what is yin (literally means “the
shady side of the mountain”) in some situation may become yang (literally means “the sunny
side of the mountain”) in another situation. The yin feature (such as femininity; softness;
wetness; darkness; cold; etc.) in one situation can become yang (features like masculinity;
firmness; dryness; brightness; warm; etc.) when it is compared to something that is more yin. A
father may be yang in relation to his son, but he is yin in relation to his father. The positions of
yin and yang are always relational; they are not fixed. What matters is the pattern of situation
formed by the four components. Given the correlative thoughts in Chinese worldview, the term
“worship” in ancestor worship has numerous connotations because everything is interrelated and
the visible and the invisible worlds are closely intertwined. As such, I prefer to the term ancestor
veneration as it is a more neutral and less loaded term, depending on the context of veneration.
Another complication to our discussion of ancestor veneration is that it is perhaps the
oldest ritual in Chinese history tied to family cult.100 From both earliest literary records and
artifacts, we find that ancestor veneration is not only related to the maintenance of family lineage,
it also helps renew and reinforce solidarity among (extended) family members and continuity in
history and tradition between the living and the deceased. 101 This preservation of patrilineal
heritage is in turn tied to the belief and practice of 礼 (li; ritual or propriety), a word with “broad
connotation, extending from the most weighty religious ceremonies to the trivialities of daily
See Stephen F. Teiser, “Introduction: The Spirits of Chinese Religion,” in Religions of China in Practice, edited
by Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 32-36.
100
In his extensive study of oracle bones, Tung finds that “almost all the elaborate religious rituals of the Yin
dynasty [ca. 1500 – 1000BCE] were meant for the ancestors.” See Tso-pin Tung, An Interpretation of the Ancient
Chinese Civilization (Taipei: Chinese Association for the United Nations, 1952), 21. Quoted from Laurence G.
Thompson, Chinese Religion: An Introduction. 5th edition (USA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1996), 32.
101
Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 32-33. Lakos listed different types of ancestors in ancestor veneration
in the history of China, but here we focus on the familial one. See William Lakos, Chinese Ancestor Worship, 16-36.
99
28
etiquette. It means ritually proper deportment in all social circumstances.” 102 According to 礼记
(Li-Ji or Records of Ritual), a collection of Confucian writings on ritual in the Warring States
period (ca. 403-221BCE), there are
[R]ules of propriety that furnish the means of determining (the observances
towards) relatives, as near and remote; of settling points which may cause
suspicion or doubt; of distinguishing where there should be agreement, and where
difference; and of making clear what is right and what is wrong […] To cultivate
one’s person and fulfill one’s words is called good conduct. When the conduct is
(thus) ordered, and the words are accordance with the (right) course, we have the
substance of the rules of propriety […].103
While the conception of li varies according to different people such as Confucius, Mencius,
Xunzi, Mozi, Daoists, and the Legalists,104 what we see here is that li (ritual; propriety) is more
concerned about how to maintain order and harmony in different kinds of human relationships
than about serving spiritual beings. It appears that li focuses and functions more at the social
level than at the “theological” level, as it provides means to cultivate and mold one’s outer and
inner dispositions according to social norms, which mimic the structure of nature and cosmos.
While li can thus be promoting status quo and hierarchy, it can also, because of correlative
thoughts, create and maintain harmony without necessarily erasing the differences.105 And as
102
Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 34. The intimate relationship between li and religious ritual is also
apparent in 论语.八佾 (Analects. Ba Yi).
103
James Legge, trans., Li Ki (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1885), Book One, I, 1, 62ff. Quoted from
Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 34-35.
104
For a brief discussion on these notions see Robert F. Campany, “Xunzi and Durkheim as Theorists of Ritual
Practice,” in Discourse and Practice, edited by Frank Reynolds and David Tracy (Albany, New York: State
University of New York Press, 1992), 200-01. For an extensive list of how li is used in different Chinese classical
literature, see Masayuki Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of the Political Thought
of Xun Zi (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003), 430-49. Also, see Noah Edward Fehl, 禮 Li: Rites and Propriety
in Literature and Life: A Perspective for a Cultural History of Ancient China (Hong Kong: The Chinese University
of Hong Kong, 1971).
105
For example: “Hence he who has an exalted idea of the rules, and guides his conduct by them, is called by us a
mannerly gentleman, and he who has no such exalted idea, and does not guide his conduct by the rules, is called by
us one of the unmannerly people. These rules (set forth) the way of reverence and courtesy; and therefore when the
services in the ancestral temple are performed according to them, there is reverence; when they are observed in the
court, the noble and the mean have their proper positions; when the family is regulated by them, there is affection
29
many have pointed out, the notion of li is also tied to 孝 (xiao; filial piety) and 仁 (ren;
benevolence).106 Analects 2.5 writes, “Parents, when alive, should be served according to li;
when dead, should be buried according to li and be sacrificed according to li.” Likewise,
Mencius (ca. 390-305BCE) thinks that “Duty to parents is the greatest […] Among our many
duties, the duty of serving the parents is fundamental […].’”107 孝经 (xiao jing; Classic of Filial
Piety), a compilation of Confucius teachings collected probably before third century BCE, even
has Confucius said that
Filial piety is the root of virtue, and that from which civilization derives […] The
body, the hair and skin are received from our parents, and we dare not injure them:
this is the beginning of filial piety. [We should] establish ourselves in the practice
of the true Way, making a name for ourselves for future generations, and thereby
bringing glory to our parents: this is the end of filial piety. Filial piety begins
with the serving of our parents, continues with the serving of our prince, and its
completed with the establishing of our own character.108
Xiao or filial piety, in other words, is the fundamental principle underlying ancestor veneration,
which as we have seen, is integral to the continuation of family and the state. To not observe the
ritual is not simply impious, it is also disloyal, abandoning one’s responsibility to the family and
the state. While filial piety, in many ways, like li (propriety) can end up maintaining status quo
and conforming people to social norm, instead of nurturing character and discernment, we see
figures in Chinese Buddhism and Daoism challenging the tradition. For instance, in 牟子理惑论
(Mouzi lihuo lun; Mouzi on the Settling of Doubt), the author tries to reason that monks were not
between father and son, and harmony among brothers; and when they are honored in the country districts and
villages, there is the proper order between old and young.” James Legge, trans., Li Ki [礼记], Book twenty-three, 57, 257f. Quoted from Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 35.
106
For a short discussion but helpful discussion on these values in ancestor veneration, see Khiok-Khng Yeo, “The
Rhetorical Hermeneutic of 1 Corinthians 8 and Chinese Ancestor Worship,” Biblical Interpretation 2, 3 (1994): 294311. Given the scope of this paper, we will not go over the notion of ren (benevolence) but will note that it is an
embodiment of li (propriety).
107
Mencius IVA. 19.1.2. Quoted from Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 36.
108
Quoted from Laurence G. Thompson, Chinese Religion, 37.
30
impious and irresponsible when they shaved their heads and became celibate without producing
heir to take care of their parents. Besides making his point through a story,109 the author argues
the act of giving up everything in joining the sangha is actually the “height of self-giving,”
which is not unlike the act devoting oneself to the family in filial piety. Using the language of
Daoism, the author even says that such act of self-giving can “lead one to the Dao,” a goal that
Confucius aims for!110 Similarly, a leading figure in the Quest for Transcendence Daoism, 葛洪
(Ge Hong; ca. 283-363CE) defends that seeking transcendence is not unfilial because the benefit
goes beyond personal to one’s (extended) family.111 While these apologetics show that there are
various ways to observe li (propriety) in honoring one’s family, we see that li (propriety) and
xiao (filial piety) are, one way or another, fundamental in Chinese worldview. This flexibility in
some ways is in tune with the system of correlative thoughts. There may be ambiguity and even
The author “gives an example of a man from the state of Qi – a stronghold of Confucianism in early China –
whose father fell into the water while crossing a river by boat. The son rescued him and had to apply considerable
force, turning him upside down to draw the water out from his mouth. Thus, he was able to receive his father. If the
son had ‘folded his hands’ in accordance with the ‘normal’ ritual norms and refrained from doing ‘violence’ to his
father […] his father would have died.” See Mugitani Kunio, “Filial Piety and ‘Authentic Parents’ in Religious
Daoism,” in Filial Piety in Chinese Thought and History, edited by Alan K. L. Chan, and Sor-hoon Tan (London
and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 115.
110
Ibid., 116. A similar rationale is found in the story of a nun called 令首 (Ling-shou). The story goes like this:
Her father said: “You ought to marry. How can you be so unfilial?” Ling-shou said: “My mind is concentrated on
the work of religion, and my thought dwells exclusively on spiritual matters. Neither blame nor praise moves me;
purity and uprightness are sufficient in themselves. Why must I submit thrice [to father, husband, and son], before I
am considered a woman of propriety?” Her father said, “You want to benefit only one person – yourself. How can
you help your father and mother at the same time?” Ling-shou said, “I am setting myself to cultivate the Way
exactly because I want to free all living beings from suffering. How much more, then, do I want to free my tow
parents!” Hsü Ch’ung [Ling-shou’s father] consulted the Buddhist magician monk from Kucha, Fo-t’u-teng […] the
monk said, “[…] If you consent to her plan, she indeed shall raise her family to glory and bring you blessings and
honor; and she shall guide you [to nirvana] on the far shore of the great ocean of suffering known as the incessant
round of birth and death.” […] The Emperor Shi Hu (?-335-349), nephew of the late Emperor Shih Lo, honored
here and promoted her father Hsü Ch’ung to the official court position of undersecretary of the Yellow Gate and
administrator of Ch’ing-ho Commandery.” See Lives of the Nuns: Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the
Fourth to Sixth Centuries. A Translation of the Pi-chu’iu-ni chuan, compiled by Shih Pao-ch’ang. Translated by
Kathryn Ann Tsai (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), 20-21.
111
“On the charge that the followers of the Way of immortality [Quest for the Transcendence] “turn their back to
traditions and abandon the world […] the Baopuzi [Ge Hong] relates, ‘I have heard that keeping one’s body without
harm is what is meant by fulfilling filial piety. Does not the attainment of the way of the immortals [or
transcendent], which enables one to enjoy everlasting life […] far surpass this?’ Furthermore, if one succeeded in
attaining the Dao, his ancestors would be immensely proud of his achievement. In the realm of the immortals,
nothing would be lacking.” See Mugitani Kunio, “Filial Piety and ‘Authentic Parents’ in Religious Daoism,” 117.
109
31
contradiction, but what matters the most is the harmony of the overall pattern. At the same time,
however, the correlative thoughts in Chinese worldview also give rise to the “superstitious”
aspects of ancestor veneration.112 In the practice of ancestor veneration which includes funeral
rites, mourning period, and sacrifices to the dead, the core value of honoring one’s elders and
ancestors becomes a fear for the dead’s punishment if one does not take care of their needs. As a
result, we see all kinds of ways trying to please the dead so that one may get blessing from them.
When the focus becomes so much on the spirits and ghosts, the human relationships fade out. As
a ritual, ancestor veneration becomes a form of traditionalism instead of a living tradition that
seeks to cultivate people to honor li (propriety) in their relationships with others.
In summary, we can see the correlative thoughts working in the ritual and propriety of
ancestor veneration. The ambiguity and ambivalence in the ritual are meant to maintain the
tension, lest one focuses too much either on the visible world or the invisible worlds. The
reverence for elders and ancestors and the fear of them at the same time make the ritual of
ancestor veneration dynamic. The religious element can keep the social function from becoming
numb to change, and the social function can provide certain order to the religious features of the
ritual. Likewise, while the (e)mergence of the past and the present in ritual can provide certain
continuity, it can also discourage of letting go of the past, as we see in the superstitious aspect of
the ritual. But as the stories of 葛洪 (Ge Hong), 令首 (Ling Shou), and 牟子理惑论 (Mouzi lihuo
lun) remind us, heritage like ancestor veneration is neither a passive acceptance and performance
of ritual nor a disregard for the past. Lastly, it is important to note that females do not have
For a critique of the superstitious aspect of ancestor veneration, see Khiok-Khng Yeo, “The Rhetorical
Hermeneutic of 1 Corinthians 8 and Chinese Ancestor Worship,”307-08. Such critiques are not new. Mozi, for
example, criticizes rituals, especially the mourning rites, as being wasteful. Likewise, Daoists and Mencius see
rituals as for human beings, not for the dead. Xunzi even says that the focus on spirits among ordinary people is
misleading. For details, see Robert F. Campany, “Xunzi and Durkheim as Theorists of Ritual Practice,”197-231.
112
32
much standing and status in Chinese ancestor veneration but are absorbed into the patrilineal
system. As such, the ritual can end up sustaining the patriarchal status quo in the society.
Conclusion
Thus far we see the power of ritual upon people. The interweaving of different times and
events in ritual makes the power of ritual hard to articulate, but an inter(con)textual reading of
different texts of various contexts helps us to describe such religious dimension of the text. In
our brief introduction to Chinese ancestor veneration, the collective honor and shame values,
respect for heritage, and responsibility to the elders further help us to highlight similar values in
1 Cor. 8-10, in particular if God and the Lord are indeed the source of our existence. The stress
on taking care of the elders and treat others according to li (propriety) also teach us not to
scandalize others. Having gnosis should not make one overconfident in one’s ability, especially
if gnosis is tied to loving God. At the same time, however, the accent on obligation and loyalty
in ancestor veneration can create exclusiveness and prevent boundaries crossing. As such, the
focus on honoring and relying on God and the Lord not only challenges Chinese to not be bound
by one’s group; it also reminds Chinese to not fossilize any system of correlative thoughts, as in
the superstitious aspect of ancestor veneration. In the case of 1 Cor. 8-10 as well, when gnosis is
fossilized and detached from signification, problems, if not scandals, break out.
33