Excerpt from James Alison's The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin Through Easter Eyes (New York: Crossroad, 1998), pp. 175-177, from Chapter 6, "Original Sin known in Its Ecclesial Overcoming."

The Pauline Ecclesial Hypostasis

Were further evidence needed of the way in which the apostolic witness understands the bringing into being of the ecclesial hypostasis, then it is lavishly provided by Paul in his Corinthian correspondence. As R. Hamerton-Kelly points out:

The Corinthian correspondence, prima facie, shows the following signs which suggest that a Girardian interpretation would be appropriate:
  1. A community split into factions by rivalry -- 1 Cor 1:10ff; 2 Cor 10-13.
  2. Calls by the apostle to his readers to imitate him as he imitates Christ - 1 Cor 4:16; 11:1; combined with a lively concern with the nature of sacrifice and the proper attitude towards it -- 1 Cor 10:14-22.
  3. The self-understanding of the apostle as victim and scapegoat -- 1 Cor 2:1-5;4:9-13; 2 Cor 12:7-10
  4. Exposition of the nature of Christian community as the body of the crucified victim -- 1 Cor 12; cf. 1:18-2:5
There are, therefore, in the Corinthian letters, four critical Girardian themes, which command our attention: rivalry, mimesis, community and victimage. (1)
In the first place, Paul understands the Corinthians as koinônoi -- those who have been called into the fellowship of the sacrificial meal, the koinônía of Christ. This is clearly a subversive understanding of the notion of sacrifice since it is compared to those who partake in Israel's sacrificial meal and opposed to those who take part in idolatrous sacrificial meals, or treat the Eucharist as if it were one such, by cursing Jesus (1 Cor 10:18-21; 12:3). The participation that is proper to Christians is that of those who have become participants in his victimary body. That it is "Christ crucified for you" who is the foundation of their new being is made clear by the ironic question in 1 Cor 1:13 "Was Paul Crucified for you?", linked to Paul's clear understanding that there is only one foundation, Christ Jesus (1 Cor 3:11). It is this that is foundational of the community, and the way into participation in it is by imitation of the self-giving that lead to Jesus' being crucified. Hence the centrality to Paul's discussion of the Eucharist: it is the self-giving of the victimary body which is what enables the Corinthians to become one body in Christ. Hence also the necessity, for proper participation in the Eucharist, of a life that is an imitation of the self-giving of the victim.

Paul illustrates this by himself being an example of something despised, an offscouring, with victimary signs, even calling himself a scapegoat (1 Cor 4:13), urging the Corinthians to become imitators of him (1 Cor 4:16) even as he is of Christ (11:1). It is his free self-giving, and willingness to subject himself to the condition of others, for their own sakes that make Paul an imitator of Christ (1 Cor 9:19-23). That is to say that there is a particular antidote to the world of rivalistic desires and factiousness which is destroying the community: the learning of a new sort of desire which is not in rivalry with any desire at all, because it is the pacific imitation of the one who is on his way into expulsion. Paul gives specific content to the notion of "flesh" here, out of which he urges his correspondents to grow. The flesh is precisely the world of rivalistic desire leading to futile foundationalism (1 Cor 3:1-4). Paul could not, in fact make it clearer than he does that the foundation that is Christ can only be lived from within a change of desires. He refers to the rock which followed Israel in the desert (1 Cor 10:4) and claims that this rock was Christ. The problem with the people of Israel was that they desired evil, and this is an example so that we should not desire likewise (1 Cor 10:6).

Not only is the undistortion of desire the key way into insertion into the one foundation, the rock, that is Christ, but this immediately means that the person who is so inserted has no need to justify himself over against anybody at all. Those who live in the spirit, like Paul himself, do not derive their identity in any way at all from what others think, whether they praise or condemn, because the identity is purely given by the Lord (1 Cor 4:1-7). Therefore there is no boasting, except in the Lord.

The theme of the overcoming of the skandalon also makes its appearance. Paul teaches quite specifically the way out of mimetic rivalry is to learn not to be a source of stumbling for the weak brother (1 Cor 8; 10:23-30). The undoing of the skandalon is at the very heart of Paul's understanding of the edification of the Church. Paul's famous hymn to charity (1 Cor 13) is entirely cast in terms of a form of desire that is peacefully mimetic -- related to the other as model, and as self-giving, rather than in the mode of comparison with, and tripping up of the other.

Thus we find clearly present in Paul's understanding of the ecclesial hypostasis the notion of the victimary foundation of the Church, and the undistorting of desire as the way into belonging to that foundation, imitating the self-giving of Christ (2). We also find a clear understanding that the whole enterprise of bringing into being the ecclesial hypostasis is understood within the terms of a creative forgiveness:

Therefore if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (3)
The unanimity of the apostolic witness regarding what is being brought into being, and what is the content of that out of which we are being brought is absolutely apparent.

Notes

1. R. Hamerton-Kelly "A Girardian Interpretation of Paul: Rivalry, Mimesis and Victimage in the Corinthian Correspondence" Semeia 33 (1985): 67. This seminal essay is the first of which I have notice to apply Girard's hermeneutic systematically to Paul's thought.

2. Hamerton-Kelly points out the importance of mimesis in the cult of Dionysus, the principle religious cult at Corinth ("A Girardian Interpretation," 72). By insisting on the mimesis of Christ even to the extent of becoming a victim, Paul is undoing the mimetic working of the Dionysiac cult, which was related to the ritualized sparagmos, or frenzied dismemberment (originally of Pentheus), associated with the god.

3. 2 Cor 5:17-19