Tool Alpha
The Stoic Reader
Stoic texts read beside the New Testament passages that share their words or their argument, and where the New Testament turns.
A member, not a part
Marcus tells himself to say he is a melos, a limb, of the body of rational beings, not merely a meros, a part. Paul tells the Corinthians they are Christ's body and members of it.
1 Corinthians 12:27, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: when Marcus and Paul both call people members of a body, is it the same body? The new hire says she is part of the team; a year later she says she is one of them. Same office, different word, different feeling. Which body is each writer talking about?
"Just as it is with the members in those bodies which are united in one, so it is with rational beings which exist separate, for they have been constituted for one co-operation. And the perception of this will be more apparent to thee, if thou often sayest to thyself that I am a member (melos) of the system of rational beings. But if (using the letter r) thou sayest that thou art a part (meros) thou dost not yet love men from thy heart."
μέλος (melos), Strong's G3196, a limb or member, and μέρος (meros), Strong's G3313, a part or share. Marcus 7.13 turns on the one letter between them: μέλος εἰμὶ τοῦ ἐκ τῶν λογικῶν συστήματος, I am a member of the system made of rational beings. Paul uses both words in one phrase at 1 Corinthians 12:27: σῶμα Χριστοῦ καὶ μέλη ἐκ μέρους, Christ's body, and members individually.
Both say a person belongs to a whole the way a limb belongs to a body, and both say this should change how you feel about others: for Marcus, you then love men from the heart; for Paul, if one member suffers, all suffer together (12:26). The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says earlier Greek and Roman thinkers had compared the state and even the universe to a body of interdependent members.
Whose body. Marcus's body is the system of all rational beings, everyone who reasons. Paul's is the body of Christ (12:27), entered by being baptized by one Spirit, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free (12:13). The study note adds that ancient writers often used the analogy to support hierarchy, while Paul values the diverse functions and gives more honor to the parts that lack it (12:24).
The word is shared and the image was common, as the study note says. Marcus reigned AD 161-80, long after Paul, so he witnesses the image rather than supplying it. No source in hand says Paul took the image from a Stoic text.
Not a theory of humanity in Paul. Paul's body is the church, not the human race.
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.13, Greek text ed. J. H. Leopold, Perseus Digital Library (canonical-greekLit)
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, trans. George Long, Book Seven, Internet Classics Archive, http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.7.seven.html
- SBL Greek New Testament, 1 Corinthians 12:12 and 12:27, via MorphGNT
- Site word study data, word-study-alpha.json, G3196 and G3313
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Zondervan, 2016), notes on 1 Corinthians 12:12 and 12:24
