The Catholic Epistles and Apostolic Tradition: A New Perspective on James to Jude

Chapter 11 - Salvation and Anthropology in First Peter

203 The following article exposes that 1 Peter absorbed more concepts of the religious koine of the time than is commonly accepted. Thus, the eschatological aspect of his message of salvation became more plausible in the context of the Hellenistic world. This will be provocatively typified in reference to the perception of the soul and the concept of rebirth together with the intertwined dualistic tendencies. At the same time, the demonstrated correspondences should indicate the kinds of transformations that these concepts underwent due to accommodation of the Christian context. As a result of this process, these concepts enriched the language of early Christian theology (and probably beyond it). Salvation of the Soul The prevalent notion of soul salvation (swthri/a yuxw~n) occurs in ancient literature for the first time in 1 Peter (1:9). This is remarkable, but just as noteworthy is the little interest this fact has received. On the contrary, already the equivalence of the greek swthri/a yuxw~n and the English soul salvation (german: Seelenheil) is up for discussion. The exegesis of 1 Peter has been gravely influenced by the common rejection of any concept of the soul, owing to the critique of metaphysics within the realm Chapter 11 SALVATION AND ANTHROPOLOgy IN FIRST PETER Reinhard Feldmeier 204 REINHARD FELDMEIER of theology. This influence has misled most of the commentaries of 1 Peter, despite all opposing evidence. The interrelation between 1 Peter and the greek concept of the soul has been rejected (and therefore also the assumption that swthri/a yuxw~n points to the salvation of the soul). Hereby, in 1 Peter, the alleged meaning of yuxh/ has not been derived from the epistle itself; rather, this interpretation is influenced by a tradition historical deduction that claims that the soul in 1 Peter is the equivalent of life, or the personal pronoun. gerhard Dautzenberg’s inquiry into the concept of swthri/a yuxw~n exemplifies this method. Up to the most recent commentaries, Dautzenberg has been cited with agreement.1 Dautzenberg came to the conclusion that there is no concept of soul in 1 Peter 1:9 and the underlying Jewish tradition.2 On closer examination, it can be shown that his entire argument is not coherent in itself. From the outset, he poses a narrow view of the Jewish and Christian tradition, wherein for him, Jewish chiefly means the (Hebrew and Aramaic written) Qumran documents, and not the writings of greek-speaking Judaism— for example, the works of the Jewish philosopher of religion, Philo, who developed a specific teaching of the soul.3 Thus, Dautzenberg’s argument is based on a petitio principii that predetermines the result of the inquiry due to the arbitrary limitation of the compared material. Dautzenberg confirms this tendency with another false conclusion, which he bases on a misleading either-or assumption. He claims there is an unbridgeable gap between the greek dualistic concept of the soul and the biblical understanding of yuxh/: either yuxh/ has to be denoted as life/existence according to the Jewish and Christian tradition, or it is the upraised part of the human that, according to the dualistic philosophical concept, is opposed to the body. Since the latter concept is not applied in 1 Peter, the meaning “life” or “existence” must be intended. yet it is not that simple. Of course one cannot expect the entire Platonic concept of the soul in 1 Peter; this would be incompatible with the central role of eschatology in the epistle. But from here, it does not necessarily follow that the notion of the soul may be merely “a Semitism standing for a reflexive pronoun.”4 Further inaccuracies are added to these false conclusions. Dautzenberg does not ask where the expression swthri/a yuxw~n might come from, or if there are other phrases equal or similar to it. Misleading in this regard is Dautzenberg’s claim (which is configured as a supplementary justification ) that 1 Peter is not interested in the distinction between the internal and external human being (Dautzenberg, “Swtrhi/a yuxw~n (1 Pet 1:9),” 274). In Paul, the notion of the inner human being occurs only twice (1 Cor 5:12; 2 Cor 4:16; cf. Eph 3:16), although the expression mentioned in 1 Peter 3:4 comes very close to the Pauline distinction between the internal and external human. Here is spoken of “the hidden a1nqrwpoj of SALVATION AND...