Paul’s immersion in Greek culture and philosophy (Hellenism) and in Stoicism, which saw nature as divine, made it easier for him to draw the people of the time into the new religion he brought. Some of these schools rejected the desires of the body and made restraint of appetite the mark of spiritual purity.1 The dualism of spirit (πνεῦμα, pneuma) and body (σάρξ, sarx) was the basis of Greek thought, in which the body was the source of weakness and sin while the spirit was pure and noble.
Small wonder that Paul inherited the tendency. He states plainly that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman.”
He repeats it in verse 7, where he regards celibacy as the better, even the ideal state. Yet in the same passage he advises every man to have his own wife to avoid fornication.2
1Περὶ δὲ ὧν ἐγράψατε, καλὸν ἀνθρώπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσθαι· 2διὰ δὲ τὰς πορνείας ἕκαστος τὴν ἑαυτοῦ γυναῖκα ἐχέτω, καὶ ἑκάστη τὸν ἴδιον ἄνδρα ἐχέτω.
1Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.3
The contradiction raises a question: is marriage a good to be encouraged, or a compromise to avoid sin? The ambiguity shows an ethical confusion in Paul’s teaching on marriage and sex. Sexual desire is treated as a weakness to be avoided altogether, and never as part of human nature to be governed responsibly.4
Paul also defended his right to take a wife like the other apostles,5 although he rejected marriage as a personal choice.6 That adds to the confusion: on one side he distrusts marriage as a hindrance to full devotion to God,7 on the other he acknowledges the institution as a right and a practice of the disciples.
The mixed attitude reveals an inner tension between the ascetic impulse and real social need. A teaching of this kind is foreign to every earlier moral and ethical tradition, and it reflects a deep discomfort with the body and with human desire.
Paul’s view runs directly against the Talmudic tradition, which recognizes marriage and intimacy as a sacred duty and a source of happiness. In the Talmud, marital relations are an obligation to be fulfilled with responsibility and love.
The tragic story of R. Rehumi, who neglected his wife in pursuit of learning until it led to his death,8 stresses the importance of tending the marriage. The saying that “a woman prefers one kab9 with gaiety to ten kab with abstinence” asserts the priority of domestic happiness over a life hemmed in by restriction or the denial of pleasure.
The Talmudic tradition goes further and gives priority to the duties of family and offspring. Even a man who has fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful should not live without a wife.10
The tradition also condemns vows that keep husband and wife apart, as something that can destroy the harmony of the home.11 In the Jewish view intimacy is a natural part of life, to be governed wisely and responsibly.
The thorn in the flesh
Paul describes himself as one “given a thorn in the flesh” (σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί, skólops tē sarki),12 a mysterious phrase much interpreted by scholars. Some connect it with physical illness; others read it as a figure for uncontrolled desire. If it refers to sexual desire, that would explain Paul’s insistence on celibacy as the way out.
7καὶ τῇ ὑπερβολῇ τῶν ἀποκαλύψεων. διὸ ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι, ἐδόθη μοι σκόλοψ τῇ σαρκί, ἄγγελος Σατανᾶ, ἵνα με κολαφίζῃ, ἵνα μὴ ὑπεραίρωμαι. 8ὑπὲρ τούτου τρὶς τὸν κύριον παρεκάλεσα ἵνα ἀποστῇ ἀπʼ ἐμοῦ· 9καὶ εἴρηκέν μοι· Ἀρκεῖ σοι ἡ χάρις μου· ἡ γὰρ δύναμις ἐν ἀσθενείᾳ τελεῖται. ἥδιστα οὖν μᾶλλον καυχήσομαι ἐν ταῖς ἀσθενείαις μου, ἵνα ἐπισκηνώσῃ ἐπʼ ἐμὲ ἡ δύναμις τοῦ Χριστοῦ.
7And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 8For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 9And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.13
A more detailed clinical hypothesis comes from Antonio Pascual, Anna Manresa Lamarca and Josep Piquero Casals, who propose that the phrase refers to a chronic skin disease, painful and socially repellent. On dermatological and historical grounds they suggest that Paul may have suffered from lupus, dermatomyositis or nodular vasculitis, diseases that bear directly on body image and social interaction, so that the suffering was both outward and psychological.14 That reading also opens the possibility that the physical suffering aggravated an existing inner conflict, including a struggle against the urges of the body.
Paul’s own statements support it: bodily weakness, continual suffering, and a disease he saw as an affliction from Satan (ἄγγελος Σατανᾶ). In his letters Paul often presents the body as the source of weakness and sin.
He ties bodily desire to “the flesh,” which he sets against “the spirit.”15 For Paul, the superior spiritual life demands total mastery of bodily impulse, a dualism drawn from Hellenistic philosophy, in which the body is the prison of the soul.
Some modern scholars have raised the possibility that Paul’s attitude sprang from unresolved sexual conflict or repressed sexual desires never consciously addressed. His extreme severity toward sexual relations and the founding of families, and his failure to acknowledge the place of physical love in religious life, raise questions about the psychological background and the real orientation that may have lain hidden.16
His act of circumcising Timothy with his own hands17 only deepens the strange shadow over his orientation and motives. A grown man circumcising a young man for political reasons is no neutral act, above all when done by a figure who rejected the law and yet chose to carry it out himself. Within a teaching so full of hostility to sex, the body and women, the incident gives a faint signal of a dark side of Paul rarely discussed openly: an inner doubt about his own identity, perhaps too deep to admit consciously.
Paul’s contempt for intimacy and his elevation of celibacy as a higher form of spirituality reflect an inner conflict. Behind the spiritual idealism he tried to defend lay fear and rejection of bodily desire, which he regarded as a threat to purity.
If so, the ideology of celibacy inherited from Paul’s teaching reflects an unbalanced personal experience. From it grew a theology of the body that distrusts desire, and from that the institutions of the celibate priesthood and monasticism, a spirituality founded on rejection of the human body.18
Letters of this kind show a man, with his errands, his ailments and his fears. The claim that sets them apart as revelation rests on other grounds: the witnesses Paul called and the visions he reported. The next article weighs them.
- See John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 7:9. ↩
- 1 Corinthians 7:1–2 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- See James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). ↩
- 1 Corinthians 9:5. ↩
- 1 Corinthians 7:6–7. ↩
- 1 Corinthians 7:32–34. ↩
- See Kethuboth 62b. ↩
- The kab (קַב) is an ancient unit of volume in the Jewish system of measures, about 1.2 to 1.3 liters, used chiefly for dry goods in Talmudic tradition. ↩
- Yevamoth 63b. ↩
- Nedarim 82a. ↩
- 2 Corinthians 12:7. ↩
- 2 Corinthians 12:7–9 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
- See Pascual et al., “Saint Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh: A Dermatological Weakness?,” Acta Medico-Historica Adriatica, vol. 20, no. 1 (2022), pp. 83–98. ↩
- See Galatians 5:17; Romans 8:5–8. ↩
- See Bart D. Ehrman, Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); also Troels Engberg-Pedersen, op. cit. ↩
- Acts 16:3. ↩
- Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987). ↩
