Tobias Robert Philip (Rutgers University)
“for the trumpet will sound [salpisei], and the dead will be awakened as incorruptible” (1 Cor. 15.52). This passage from Paul has come to be identified with the eschatological doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, but the line itself appears within a very curious passage of the epistle, centering on the meaning of the word mystērion that Paul uses to describe his teaching. In this paper, I argue that the trumpet, like the revealed mystērion where it appears, has a preexisting religious background in Second Temple Judaism as well as a pointed role in the cult of Dionysus, and moreover that Paul leverages these earlier associations to appeal to his Corinthian readership. After examining other allusions to Dionysiac cult in Paul’s epistles and the religious background of his Corinthian audience, I show that Paul applies the Greek implications of the salpinx to a broader program of mystery cult language.
Earlier scholarly engagement with this passage has debated the contextual meaning of mystērion for Paul. Many argue that mystērion draws exclusively from the language of Second Temple apocalypticism (Von Soden 1911; Deden 1936; Brown 1968). Harvey’s 1980 study occupies a more nuanced position, believing that the Jewish context can explain the mystērion in Corinthians, but that Paul was aware of the term’s Greek resonance. Others show that the Septuagint (Wisd. 8.4) and other Hellenized Jews (Joseph. Ap. 2.189 and Philo Cher. 42ff.) all demonstrate familiarity with the Greek mystery cults and the language that surrounds them (Smith 1990; Bremmer 2014). The implications of their arguments broaden the scope of meaning for both Paul’s mystērion and the trumpet that accompanies its revelation.
Like the mystērion, the trumpet (salpinx) is situated at intersecting cultural backgrounds, recalling both the Greek instrument and the Hebrew hatsoerah (Kolyada 2014). Because the hatsoerah figures prominently in Second Temple narratives of apocalyptic battles, Paul’s salpinx must have resonance in Jewish eschatology (Gladd 2008). Seeing, however, that Josephus (JA 3.291) and Plutarch (Mor. 671e) use salpinx to describe both the Jewish and the Greek trumpet, the trumpet in Corinthians can have both connotations. I argue that the role of the Greek salpinx in the worship of Dionysus, as evident in the rites of the god’s katabasis and anabasis at Lerna and the chthonic Anthesteria (Nordquist 1996; Piérart 1996), informs its appearance in Paul’s letter, strengthening the appeal of the thematically related resurrection narrative to his formerly polytheist Greek audience. Others have argued for recognizing Dionysiac language in Paul (Seaford 2017; Kroeger and Kroeger 1978), but the implications of this strategic employment of ritual imagery have yet to find resonance in the role of the eschatological salpinx. In drawing from both the Jewish apocalyptic and Dionysiac imagery of the salpinx, Paul plays on the cross-cultural connections of a single instrument. Recognizing this interplay not only broadens the multivalent meaning that the salpinx could have in Roman Greece, but also locates the vocabulary of Paul’s theological developments at the intersection of apocalyptic Judaism and mystery cult ritual.