Secular singleness and Paul's response in 1 Corinthians 7

Abstract

This thesis examines Paul's discussion of marriage and singleness in 1 Corinthians 7 in light of non-ascetic or secular singleness in the early Roman Empire. The thesis builds upon a proposal advanced by Will Deming that Paul's discussion in 1 Corinthians 7 is best understood against the backdrop of Hellenistic philosophical discourse, in which marriage was envisioned primarily as a set of responsibilities toward one's spouse, household and community, and the decision to marry (or to refrain from marriage) was viewed as an ethical dilemma. The thesis first argues that secular singleness among males was common in first century urban centres such as Corinth, and that Epicureanism provided the prevailing ethical justification for a man to decline marriage and remain single. The thesis then argues that reading Paul's response to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 7 in light of such an Epicurean-based secular singleness provides a better interpretation of the details of the chapter than the backdrop of Corinthian asceticism commonly ascribed to it. The thesis is advanced in three parts. Part I (Chapter 1) addresses matters of definition and methodology, and reviews the major existing interpretive paradigms for 1 Corinthians 7. Part II considers the demographic basis for secular singleness and the trajectory of its ideological defence. Chapter 2 examines a range of demographic evidence (literary, epigraphic, archaeological, and papyrological) pointing to the likelihood of a significant imbalance of males and females in the urban context that contributed to a surplus of unmarried males. Chapter 3 shows how secular singleness as an ethical option had longstanding roots in Greek thought, and that in the Roman period Epicureanism was its most dominant ideological proponent. The second half of the thesis consists of Part III, which moves to an exegetical analysis of 1 Corinthians 7 in light of secular singleness. Chapter 4 examines select contextual issues that significantly bear upon exegesis of the chapter including: the nepi de formula induced structure of the chapter, the pattern of apparent Corinthian quotations in the letter, the extenuating context of immorality, and the identification of the 'present distress' of 7:26. Chapter 5 presents a proposed reconstruction of the Corinthians' motivations for raising their question to Paul in light of secular singleness and explains the essential logic of Paul's response in the chapter. Chapter 6 then provides a section-by-section exegesis of the content of 1 Corinthians 7 to show how the proposed reconstruction is supported in the details of the chapter. A brief conclusion summarises the findings of the study, the major contributions of the thesis, and areas for further research.