Spirit Possession and Women in Pauline Churches
When Paul arrived in a city, he put on a performance of spirit and power:
Because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction (1 Thess 1:5, NRSV).
My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God (1 Cor 2:4-5, NRSV).
For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God (Rom 15:18-19, NRSV)
It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? (Gal 3:1-2, NRSV).
Possession by the crucified and resurrected Jesus was the central myth of the discourse about physical bodies constructed in the cultic proclamation Kupios’ Iqoous in the Christ-cult formed in response to Paul’s performances of spirit and power.[1017]
This discourse about physical bodies possessed by a crucified and resurrected deity challenged other discourses about physical bodies in the early Roman Empire. For example, in the texts about Paul in what has become the New Testament the discourse about bodies possessed by Jesus is in tension with bodies marked as male and female in the Roman Empire. Paul in Gal 3:28 writes: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (NRSV). Those who confessed this liturgy were those who were possessed by Jesus (Gal 3:2; see 2:20) and experienced an apotheosis as children of God (Gal 4:6).
Physical bodies as male or female and embedded in a web of political, social, and economic interests no longer defined the subjectivity of those who were possessed by the spirit, so that, for example, Paul’s hierarchy in 1 Cor 12:28-31 of those possessed by the spirit is not marked for gender: “And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues” (1 Cor 12:28, NRSV). In contrast, the Paul of 1 Timothy articulates a gender hierarchy embedded in ecclesiastical authority that controls access to the deity:I desire, then, that in every place the men should pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument; also that the women should dress themselves modestly and decently in suitable clothing, not with their hair braided, or with gold, pearls, or expensive clothes, but with good works, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God. Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with modesty (1 Tim 2:8-15; NRSV).
In the church as the “pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Tim 3:15), physical bodies as male or female define the subjectivity of those under the authority of a male hierarchy, a male hierarchy whose laying on of hands controls the gifts of the spirit (1 Tim 4:14). In the ecclesiastical apologetics of the narrative of Acts, a male hierarchy through whom the voice of tradition speaks supplants Paul’s spirit-possession cults (compare the descriptions of a gathering of the community in 1 Cor 14:26-33a with 1 Tim 4:13-14). The qualification for leadership in the church is no longer defined by πνευματικά (1 Corinthians 12) but by gender (1 Tim 2:12).
These two poles are evident in two disputed passages about women in 1 Corinthians, 1 Cor 14:33b-36 and 1 Cor 11:3-16.[1018] In 11:3-16 possessed women are not silenced but their performance of spirit possession (praying in tongues and prophesying, compare 14:13-40) is constrained by gender distinctions enforced by an ecclesiastical consensus. Authority resides in the practice of churches (v. 16) construed as a bulwark for the divine order of this world (v. 3). First Corinthians 11:3-16 ends with the authority of the churches (αί εκκλησίαι του θεού - churches defined by a gender hierarchy, v. 3, and having an obligation to enforce a knowledge of nature, v. 14) to control the physical bodies of women possessed by the spirit. “Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered?” (πρεπον εστιν γυναϊκα άκατακαλυπτον τώ θεώ προσευχεσθαι, v. 13). Paul’s argument about prophesying and speaking in tongues in chapters 12 and 14 culminates with the possessed “I” who speaks the commands of the Lord (14:37); the argument of 11:3-16 culminates with the “we” who speaks for the consensus of the churches.[1019]
On the other hand, in 1 Cor 14:33b-36 a consensus of all the churches silences possessed women. As a gloss commenting on Paul’s discussion of prophecy in chapter 14 (especially in vv. 26-40), 14:33b-36 excludes the voice of women prophets from the church.[1020] [1021] Many more scholars have recognized 14:33b-36 as a non-Pauline interpolation, though usually the arguments focus narrowly on the role of women in Paul’s churches.[1022] In 14:33b-36 as in 11:3-16 the underlying issue is the authority of the spiritpossessed “I.” This concern to establish ecclesiastical authority over physical bodies possessed by a spirit delimits the boundaries of this interpolation. The consensus of all the churches of the saints (ω< εν πασαι? ταϊ? εκκλησία:? των αγίων, v. 33b) contrasts with the knowledge mediated by those possessed by the spirit (η όφ’ υμών ο λόγο? του θεού εξηλθεν, η εί? ύμα? μόνου? κατηντησεν, v. 36) to determine proper behavior εν εκκλησία.[1023] This gloss asserts the authority of the church to enforce a hierarchy of physical bodies as male or female to silence women in the church over against those possessed by the spirit who speak the word of God free from the boundaries of a physical body (1 Cor 14:26-33a, 37-40). Verses 33b-36 introduce a distinction between men (who presumably speak for the spirit and establish the consensus of the churches) and women (who do not speak for the spirit and do not participate in the consensus of the churches), a distinction otherwise absent in chapters 12 and 14. Paul’s hierarchy of spiritual gifts in 12:28-31a is not marked for gender. Verses 33a-36 gloss Paul’s comment in 14:31-33a that all may prophesy in order. Of course, this added commentary asserts, Paul did not mean to include women. The two versions of Paul’s conversion preserved in the New Testament are embedded in these two competing constructions of physical bodies possessed by spirits. Paul’s own version in Galatians 1 locates authority in the one possessed by the crucified and resurrected Lord: “When God was pleased to reveal his son in me, I did not consult with flesh and blood” (Gal 1:16-17). Paul’s authority is not determined by relationships to other physical bodies but by the resurrected deity that possessed him. Spirit possession is a discourse about physical bodies. “Religious experience” as a mystification of this discourse should be retired by the historian of religions in general and the historian of early Christianity in particular. History of religions is not a history of so-called religious experiences. History of religions is a history of the ever changing discourses about the presence of deities constructed in relation to specific social, political, and economic contexts. “Religious experience” is an apologetic category for the essence of religion, a category that depends entirely on the mythology of those who believe. As such, “religious experience” obscures the interests served by discourses about deities who possess both male and female bodies.[1024] Works Cited Alkier, Stefan. Wunder und Wirklichkeit in den Briefen des Apostels Paulus: Ein Beitrag zu einem Wunderverständnis jenseits von Entmythologisierung und Rehistorisierung. WUNT 134. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Ashton, John. The Religion of Paul the Apostle. New Haven: Yale University, 2000. Aune, David E. “Magic in Early Christianity.” ANRW II.23.2.1507-57. Betz, Hans Dieter. Galatians. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979. Boas, Franz. The Religion of the Kwakiutl Indians. 2 volumes. 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