1. Discerning the Problems: Contextual Difficulties of a Christ-Group

The groups addressed in 1 Cor 1.12 were long understood analogously to modern Christian sects. Many scholars understood the Corinthian factions as groups with competing theological claims, rooted variously in Judaism, Hellenism, forms of Gnosticism, etc. However, Paul openly condemns any preaching of the Gospel – even by Cephas – that he believes opposes his own and instructs his congregations to avoid such teachers in his other epistles.Footnote ³ By contrast, there appears to be no open condemnation of Apollos or Cephas in 1 Cor 1.10–4.21,Footnote ⁴ which suggests that Paul did not perceive the divisions in Corinth to be of the same ilk as those in e.g. Galatia. Rather than denouncing them as ‘false apostles’ or their teaching as ‘contrary to what you've received’, he asserts that he and Apollos are both equally servants of God (3.5–9), references Cephas positively (9.5; 15.5) and endorses another visit to Corinth by Apollos (16.12).Footnote ⁵

Paul does denounce their divisions and factions (σχίσματα, ἔριδες, 1.10, 11; 3.3) and diagnoses their behaviour as puffed up and boastful (φυσίωσις, καύχησις; 1.29, 31; 3.21; 4.6, 7, 18). Recent studies have rightly seen that such language invites the reader to understand the situation against a socio-political background – namely, that of patronage. As a client's status was dependent upon that of his or her patron, the client benefited by the public praise of that patron – even if no specific beneficium was promised in reward. The public recognition of a patron's superiority entailed a boost in status for those publicly affiliated with that patron.Footnote ⁶ Analogously, Corinthian Christians had begun to claim allegiance to particular apostolic figures and praised them in contradistinction to others in the interest of distinguishing themselves within the Christian community. These behavioural patterns had already been carried over from the realm of politics to academia by Paul's day, with students praising their master to the derision of others' with not a little self-interest.Footnote ⁷ Such claims of allegiance may have been implied, if not denoted, by Paul's use of the phrase ‘I am of X’ in 1 Cor 1.12 and 3.4.Footnote ⁸ This background likewise accords with Paul's ecclesiological correctives to this behaviour in 1 Cor 1.10–4.21 (on which, see below).Footnote ⁹

This idea of publicly praising one's patron in the interest of personal glory makes sense of groups centred around the apostolic figures of Paul, Apollos and even Cephas.Footnote ¹⁰ If a person's allegiance to one of these figures was known within the church, that public relationship would leave them with much to gain if that figure were recognised as superior. Self-interested praise of one's spiritual ‘patron’ would be expected to raise the ‘client's’ status by connection.

However, the milieu of patronage still leaves readers with the question: who claimed to be ‘of Christ’? Though several suggestions have been proposed,Footnote ¹¹ the contextual and historical difficulties in identifying such a group abound. Fee summarises these difficulties in five points, on which we will comment in succession.Footnote ¹²

1. Claiming allegiance to Christ is certainly of a different ilk than claiming allegiance to one of his human preachers.Footnote ¹³ Paul's positive correlation between patronal factionalism and baptism in 1 Cor 1.14–15 implies that such initiatory rites were seen as indicative of patronal relationships in the social realm.Footnote ¹⁴ One of the few baptised by Paul would have reason to praise him to the derision of the impressive Apollos; one baptised by Apollos likewise had an interest in praising him at the expense of Paul. But if apostolic patronage was publicly secured through the administration of baptism, no Corinthian had an analogous claim to Christ. Though one can debate whether Cephas ever baptised in Corinth, Jesus did not.

2. Furthermore, being ‘of Christ’ is probably one way that all the Corinthians were taught to identify themselves. Paul himself speaks in this way in his letters (Rom 8.9; 1 Cor 3.23; 15.23; 2 Cor 10.7; Gal 3.29; 5.24; cf. Rom 14.8),Footnote ¹⁵ and the same designation was preserved in the Markan tradition (Mark 9.41). Conceptually, being ‘of Christ’ is one way in which one is said to be ‘in Christ’ (1 Cor 1.30; etc.), which is attained by being baptised into Christ (Gal 3.27; etc.). In 1 Cor 3.23, ‘you are of Christ’ is ‘a positive expression of Christian existence’.Footnote ¹⁶ If four groups are in view here, Paul's condemnation of all four indicates that claiming to be ‘of Christ’ is a problem – even though it is what he himself proclaims in 3.23 as the solution to division! As Fee observes, this is ‘certainly what Paul would have wanted them’ to be saying.Footnote ¹⁷ To think that Paul in 3.23 employs as a solution what he denounced as the problem in 1.11–12 – and that he did so without explaining himself – requires tenuous speculation.Footnote ¹⁸

3. In connection with the above, it is also likely that being ‘of Christ’ is how all of the groups would have thought of themselves in contradistinction to the pagan world of Roman Corinth. When patronal ties promised upward mobility and demanded exclusive praise within a society, the clients praised their local leaders to distinguish themselves from others within their own midst. Claiming allegiance to Christ would not distinguish them within Corinthian Christianity.Footnote ¹⁹ On the other hand, claiming allegiance to figures like Paul, Apollos or Cephas would have provided precisely that distinction within a wider body of believers who all saw themselves as ‘of Christ’. If one group claimed allegiance only to Christ, however, they would have nothing to gain.

4. There is no further indication of such a group within the NT canon or elsewhere. Though attractive, the adduction of 2 Cor 10.7 (‘If anyone thinks that he is of Christ …’) here is inadvisable.Footnote ²⁰ There, Χριστοῦ εἶναι is Paul's own formulation and should not be mirror-read to indicate a slogan of his opponents in 2 Corinthians. Those opponents are intruders who claim to be διάκονοι or ἀπόστολοι Χριστοῦ (cf. 2 Cor 11.13, 23) over against Paul, not against others within the church.Footnote ²¹ Evidence from early Christianity also gives no indication of a Christ-group. Forty years later, Clement of Rome complained to the church of Corinth that even in Paul's day they were ‘engaged in partisanship’ over Paul, Cephas and Apollos – decisively omitting a ‘Christ-group’ (1 Clem. 47.3).Footnote ²²

5. Lastly, if there was a Christ-group, they would neither have been bitten by the sting of Paul's rhetorical questions in v. 13, which were directed against all the groups, nor affected by his reconciliatory pronouncement in 3.21–3. Hurd has aptly demonstrated that Paul's questions in v. 13 (‘Paul wasn't crucified for you, was he? You weren't baptised into the name of Paul, were you?’), intended to undermine the boasting of all the groups, would have only magnified a Christ-group.Footnote ²³ They could have answered: ‘No, Christ is not divided. No, Paul was not crucified for us – Christ was. No, we were (all) baptised into Christ's name’. Likewise 3.21–3 (Paul, Apollos and Cephas are ‘yours’; and you are ‘Christ's’) would only reinforce the Christ-group as superior in the Corinthian social system, forcing the others to desert their human leaders and submit to this fourth party. Paul's rhetorical questions, actually, seem to reinforce the slogan ‘I am of Christ’ as though it alone were proper.Footnote ²⁴

These difficulties have caused some to abandon the idea of a Christ-group and read this fourth phrase instead as indicating no historical group at all. However, these interpreters feel bound by the syntax of the sentence to maintain the standard punctuation: in Greek editions, the final ἐγὼ δέ must be joined to what precedes by a comma (thus all punctuated editions); in translation, then, it should be contained within quotation marks as the final slogan, separate from the rhetorical question in v. 13.

In order to retain the standard translation and to deny a historical ‘Christ-group’, commentators have been forced to read the phrase as a reductio ad absurdum inserted by Paul.Footnote ²⁵ Commentators who read the phrase in this way are on the mark in seeing that the ‘slogan’ is not one of a Christ-group and its intended tone is one of rebuke. One wonders, however, whether this is the best way to characterise Paul's use of the phrase here.Footnote ²⁶ The illocution is certainly one of rebuke, but are we to understand Paul as providing merely an ‘ironic dig’?Footnote ²⁷ Might this phrase, which is employed positively to supplant their competitive allegiances in 3.22–3, be an earnest and exemplary expression of Christian allegiance in 1.12?Footnote ²⁸ In my view the ironic reading, while basically on target, misses the positive place of the fourth ‘slogan’ due to its adherence to the perceived syntactical strictures of v. 12.

2. A Syntactical Problem and a Possible Solution

An alternative to the traditional punctuation of 1.12 has been suggested by Lake:

Contextually, Lake argued that this reading ‘adds to the force’ of the question in v. 13 (‘Paul wasn't crucified for you, was he? You weren't baptised into the name of Paul, were you?’) and makes it an intelligible response. Grammatically, however, his only defence is that ‘Paul's style is far from being formally correct’.Footnote ³⁰

Despite the fact that commentators and translators have not adopted this reading outright, it has received some support.Footnote ³¹ Barrett noted the possibility in 1978 and seems to have become more convinced of it by 2003.Footnote ³² Kammler, though he does not cite Lake and offers no repunctuation of the verse, has adopted substantially the same reading: rather than a reductio ad absurdum, ‘[d]ie Worte ἐγὼ δὲ Χριστοῦ sind eine durchaus ernst gemeinte und theologisch begründete Antithese des Paulus, die er den zuvor mitgeteilten Parolen emphatisch entgegenstellt’.Footnote ³³

The contextual grounds for this reading are widely acknowledged. Schrage notes that, had Paul not spoken these words, we would have been forced to assume that being ‘Christ's’ was an antithesis to membership in one of these three parties.Footnote ³⁴ Fitzmyer likewise intimates that the context demands only the three groups that feature in Paul's discussion in 1.13–4.21 (cf. 3.4, 22) and that reading ‘I am of Christ’ as a counter-claim by Paul himself ‘accords well with the following v. 13’.Footnote ³⁵ Meyer, who espouses an enthusiastic Christ-group here, nevertheless reacts: ‘Gibt es eine bessere Parole als diese?’Footnote ³⁶

For these commentators, neither the context nor co-text makes much sense of a ‘Christ-group’, nor does it seem likely that Χριστοῦ εἶναι can be a negative thing in Paul's theology. But they are reticent to read ‘I am of Christ’ as Paul's own declaration based on these factors alone. The cause of this reticence is the simple syntax of the verse, which appears to require the standard punctuation as follows:

Collins comments that for Lake's punctuation to be correct, ‘one might have expected Paul to have employed a strongly adversative “but” (alla), but he does not do so’.Footnote ³⁷ Fascher concludes that the fourfold repetition of ἐγὼ with a genitive is so ‘eindeutig konstruiert’ that Lake's reading is impossible.Footnote ³⁸ Kammler, however, objects that Paul's original auditors knew precisely how many groups there were, and could have understood him clearly despite the grammar, which, to us, is unclear.Footnote ³⁹

The grammatical structure appealed to here is the pattern ἐγὼ μέν | ἐγὼ δέ | ἐγὼ δέ | ἐγὼ δέ. As noted in the standard reference books, μέν | δέ highlights a juxtaposition of verbs, nouns or of two sentences in their entirety.Footnote ⁴⁰ When correlating more than two elements, the commonest way to introduce the added element is with δέ,Footnote ⁴¹ as in Eph 4.11 or Matt 16.14. In view of this principle, it is entirely possible that reading of ‘I am of Christ’ as a fourth slogan is correct. I do not contend that this rendering is unwarranted or grammatically unlikely; I do contend that this reading is not necessitated by the syntax. Interpreters argue that, based on this syntactical convention, the final δέ is too weak a disjunctive to provide the syntactical break required by Lake's reading and, therefore, must add a further element to the list of slogans. However, an analysis of the strength of δέ to provide a break from a μέν | δέ correlation is lacking. What is necessary in our assessment of 1 Cor 1.12 is, first and foremost, a re-evaluation of the particle δέ and whether it could have provided a sufficient break from the preceding μέν | δέ clauses.

3. A Grammatical Re-Evaluation of 1 Cor 1.12

If he desired to express himself as Lake reads, Paul could have done so in many ways. Collins' suggestion of ἀλλά is possible.Footnote ⁴² Paul could also have used μέντοι or added γέ. Perhaps the clearest revision (save replacing ἕκαστος and ἐγώ with ἄλλος μὲν . . . ἐγὼ δέ, etc.) would have been ἐγὼ δέ εἰμι Χριστοῦ. But Paul chose none of these. In a discussion of this text, the question is not whether Paul was able to express Lake's translation differently, but whether or not he was bound to do so. Provided below are examples of the difficulties in discerning the pattern μέν | δέ | δέ, arguing (1) that δέ is strong enough to provide a break in the syntax of 1 Cor 1.12 and (2) that at least one ancient Greek reader read it this way.

1. The pattern μέν | δέ | δέ. The particle δέ alone can provide a sufficient break from a μέν | δέ correlation, even when the constructions are grammatically parallel.

(a) Firstly, δέ can easily provide a break in the construction: ‘A μέν, B δέ. 2 δέ’. In this instance the elements ‘A, B’ agree in case, whereas element ‘2’ does not, and the period ‘.’ marks a full break in thought. Due to element ‘2’, these examples do not parallel 1 Cor 1.12 exactly, but they do illustrate the dependence of editors and interpreters on extra-grammatical features when choosing where to divide μέν | δέ from a following δέ. For example,

Here μέν and δέ juxtapose the activity of the bow and stern of the ship. The next clause, using the postpositive δέ, is rightly divided by the editors with a period. Here, this choice of punctuation is facilitated primarily by two factors, obvious to most readers: (1) the context demands it; (2) the change of case from two contrasted nominatives to a genitive provides a more obvious grammatical break.Footnote ⁴³

(b) However, the question of textual division is not always so simple. At times, the construction ‘A μέν, B δέ. C δέ’ occurs, where the particles correlate three elements (‘A, B, C’) of the same case, but a break in thought (‘.’) is still understood from context.Footnote ⁴⁴ For example,

Here, the author contrasts those who refused the invitation to the wedding banquet (both nominative in case). But how are we to understand the final δέ clause, also with a nominative? The editors have rightly chosen to understand the sentence not as a continued correlation or list (i.e. ‘one went home; another went to his business; the rest seized the servants’) and to punctuate in such a way that indicates this interpretation: ‘One went to his own field; the other went to his business. The rest, however, seized his servants and …’ But the syntax, at first glance, is ὅς μέν | ὅς δέ | οἱ δέ. The shift to the plural in itself does not indicate a break in the juxtaposition.Footnote ⁴⁵ The only thing in this instance that causes such a choice in punctuation and (therefore) in translation is the context. It makes better sense to understand a break in thought between the two groups who merely declined the invitation and those who took action against the messengers.

The same interpretive decision is reflected also here,

Does this mean, ‘Some heeded what was spoken; others disbelieved; still others, disagreeing with one another, …’? No. The editors, by inserting a semicolon, indicate that they understand the final ‘C δέ’ clause to mark a break in thought. But why? Again the controlling factor is the context. The final subject includes both those who heeded and those who disbelieved and therefore should be understood as a separate thought, but the grammar alone does not necessitate this.

One further NT example comes in the Epistle to the Hebrews,

Must this, then, mean, ‘They disciplined us for a few days as seemed best to them, he [does so] for our benefit that we may share in his holiness, but all discipline …’ as though the three nominatives were all elements in the same correlation?Footnote ⁴⁶ Here again, the context suggests that the final δέ indicates a break in thought with the preceding correlation: ‘… holiness. Now, (δέ) all discipline …’

(c) One further complication of Lake's reading is that not only is δέ used to end a μέν | δέ correlation, but also that Paul, in asserting something of himself, gives the impression of anaphora in positing the contrast. For this phenomenon, we adduce a parallel from the Shepherd of Hermas:

We have already noted that Paul could have expressed Lake's punctuation in other ways. But he could also have used δέ to mark a break in thought, as in this example from the Shepherd. Here, the break is facilitated by the shift from αἱ to ἐγώ, but otherwise the syntactical pattern is no different. Here the final δέ not only marks a change in subject within the construction but also marks a sharp contrast between the fourth party's action with those of the first three. This is exactly how Lake reads Paul's construction of 1 Cor 1.12, where the final ἐγὼ δέ both marks a shift to the author's first person ἐγώ from ἕκαστος, and intends to indicate the contrast between his final first-person ‘slogan’ and the first three. Paul contrasts his final, first-person, claim with ‘everyone's’, which he impersonates also using the first person (ἐγώ). His repetition of ἐγώ is compulsory, not anaphoric.Footnote ⁴⁷

(d) One final complication remains: we need to understand not only where the break in thought occurs in the context of 1 Cor 1.12–13, but whether the fourth δέ can also indicate the end of a quotation. Quotation marks, like other punctuation, are of course always determined by context.Footnote ⁴⁸ But are there any examples of ‘“A μέν, B δέ.” C δέ’, where the correlated elements, within a quotation, are of the same case as the fronted subject of the new sentence, not included in the quotation and separated by δέ?

Yes. This example comes from well beyond the dialectical milieu of the NT but is nevertheless fully illustrative of the phenomenon, and not by any grammatical principle foreign to later Greek:

Here we have an example of editors punctuating a parallel construction with exactly the punctuation for which we argue in 1 Cor 1.12, both regarding the period and the position of the quotation marks. But no merely grammatical case can be made for this in Homer, as in 1 Corinthians. The obvious contextual break between the two elements signals to modern editors, as it would have to ancient audiences, that a new thought is beginning.

2. Patristic support. The final piece of evidence for Lake's reading is John Chrysostom, who expounds 1 Cor 1.12 thus in a homily:

Chrysostom spoke and wrote in Greek. His indication of this as his own opinion (οἶμαι) perhaps betrays his awareness that this is not the most natural reading of the syntax. Still, he gives his proposal without any grammatical apology, as he does elsewhere with difficult syntax.Footnote ⁵⁰ This evidence should demonstrate that reading ‘I am of Christ’ as Paul's own ‘slogan’ is at least possible. Chrysostom's witness does not mean that this reading is correct, but it certainly means that it is Greek. What will decide the matter, then, is context.

4. Supporting the solution: contextual factors

1. Being in Christ: Paul's solution to Corinthian divisions. Most of the contextual factors against reading a Christ-group have been listed above. But our reading does not rest on negative evidence alone. There are also positive indicators that ‘I am of Christ’ is Paul's own utterance. Throughout the letter, Paul's theology of the church and incorporation into Christ are the fundamental means he employs to combat patron-based factionalism.Footnote ⁵¹ Membership ‘in Christ’, which is little different than being ‘of Christ’,Footnote ⁵² relativises all social paradigms.Footnote ⁵³ Paul employs this ‘ongoing ordering principle’ to make the many realise unity in the social sphere within the church.Footnote ⁵⁴ Its antithesis is worldliness or, as Paul terms it in 3.3–4, ‘human’-ness.Footnote ⁵⁵ This is implied by the fact that Paul can counteract patronal factionalism throughout the letter by reminding the Corinthian Christians of their incorporation into Christ.Footnote ⁵⁶

According to Mitchell's rhetorical analysis, Paul's treatments of the several troubles in Corinth are aimed at reinforcing his single πρόθεσις that there be ‘no divisions among’ them (1.10).Footnote ⁵⁷ The theological content of these proofs is primarily served by the metaphors of incorporation into Christ, by which believers belong to God and are indwelt and unified by the Spirit.Footnote ⁵⁸ These virtually synonymous expressions are Paul's means of undergirding the Corinthians' primary identity in Christ against other sources of boasting, personal identification and faction.Footnote ⁵⁹ Through Christ they belong to God and in his Spirit they belong to one another.Footnote ⁶⁰ Paul is out to effect social change by theological clarity, and so to explicate theology he will make use of contemporary exempla for illustration. Throughout these proofs, Paul's primary exemplum is himself.Footnote ⁶¹

2. The argument of 1 Cor 1.10–4.21. In 1 Cor 1.10–4.21, Paul employs these same theological proofs to the same communal ends and includes similar personal exempla. In seeking to understand the coherence of Paul's response, some have misinterpreted this passage to be Paul's attack on Apollos' eloquence or on sophistic rhetoric in general.Footnote ⁶² But this misses Paul's end for his means. While Paul seems aware of a rub caused by his and Apollos' rhetorical styles, his exposition employs σοφία λόγου (‘eloquent wisdom’, NRSV) as a springboard to a greater contrast between the mechanisms of God (through his servants) and those of the world (exemplified in divisions over Paul, Apollos and Cephas).Footnote ⁶³

The contrast between divine power and human wisdom, with the cross as its evidence (1.18–2.5), is paralleled with the contrast of the mystical and ethical disposition of the baptised with that of the world:Footnote ⁶⁴ the ‘mature’ (2.6) who possess ‘the wisdom of God’ (2.7) do so because they possess ‘the Spirit of God’ (2.11–12) and are thus ‘Spiritual’ people (πνευματικοί, 2.13–16); by contrast, those who do not possess the Spirit are therefore described as those taught by ‘human wisdom’ (2.13), ‘un-Spiritual’ (ψυχικοί, 2.14), ‘fleshly’ (3.1, 3), ‘infants’ (3.2) and, therefore, ultimately only ‘human’ (3.3–4). God's wisdom, as shown in the offensive cross of Jesus, is introduced as primary evidence that God and the world have entirely different modes of operation.Footnote ⁶⁵

Within this proof, Paul himself is again the primary exemplum (1.17; cf. 2.5). His preaching of Christ alone is contrasted with those who are arrogant and socially contentious by worldly wisdom (4.19–20), i.e. those who promulgate patrons alone. The antithesis of God's wisdom in Paul is not, then, the world's wisdom in Apollos' eloquence, but the Corinthians' misappropriation of worldly categories to the church by their factionalism.Footnote ⁶⁶ Again, the contrast is between the divine and the human, mitigated by Paul the exemplar.

In light of this, we may summarise the passage in this way: against factionalism, Paul elucidates the radical difference between God and the world (1.18–2.16), emphasising the folly of Christ's cross as its primary evidence. The death of Christ is the act of God that saves those who believe (1.21–4), and it is because of this God and his action that the Corinthian Christians are in Christ (1.30).Footnote ⁶⁷ This incorporation is primary over dependence on all patrons – especially, here, those apostolic figures in whom they boast for worldly distinction. These, Paul clarifies, are merely workers in God's field (3.5–11). The Corinthians cannot belong to Paul, Apollos or Cephas: they belong to God alone who brought about their status in Christ and who will judge all his servants at the parousia (3.12–15; 4.1–5). They must not corrupt God's temple (3.16–17) by imposing human standards and practices on God in the name of ‘wisdom’ (3.18–20). Paul redirects their boasting in humans towards its proper place in God through Christ (3.21a; 1.29–31) on these cosmic grounds:

Paul pronounces the antithesis of the slogans: they are not ‘of Paul, Apollos, or Cephas’; Paul is theirs, and they are ‘of Christ’. All things, here as elsewhere in Paul, flow a patre ad patrem.Footnote ⁶⁹ Paul reorients them to their primary source of identity: they are Christ's. As such, they must put aside all boasting in these figures, who are merely servants of the Corinthians in Christ (4.1). No longer are they to be puffed up against one another (4.6) in the names of their patrons. In their new existence in Christ, they are to follow the ‘father’ of Corinthian Christianity, Paul, who himself encourages them by his own example to claim allegiance to Christ over all (4.15–16).

3. The function of 1 Cor 1.12–13. To read ‘I am of Christ’ as Paul's own response to Corinthian boasting and factionalism, then, is consonant with his own argumentation and theology in this section of the letter. Paul's argument serves to clarify his identity (and others') as an apostle, not a praise-demanding patron, and to encourage their behaviour in light of this fact and in imitation of him. In 1.12, then, Paul anticipates his subsequent argumentation by his retort and his rhetorical questions. The parallel syntax of ἐγὼ δὲ Χριστοῦ actually heightens the contrast between their boasting in men and his boasting in Christ – though they believe they are all ‘of Christ’ and merely competing within the body, Paul's juxtaposition of himself with ἕκαστος implies jarringly that even in the sphere of patronage they should claim only Christ. As the first of many personal exempla, he offers his own ‘slogan’ alongside theirs to emphasise the contrast between them, which he will invite them to follow over the course of his argument. No group in Corinth is following Christ; Paul is following Christ. That is the point. He adds the questions ‘Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptised into the name of Paul?’ (1.13) to redirect their boasting to its proper place and to distance his name from the competitive arena of boasting. This contrast transitions to that of the divine and the human by way of highlighting the act of God that incorporated them into Christ. Paul does not reduce their claims to absurdity; he reorients their self-understanding into the entirely un-‘human’ realm of God's counsel and grace.