On not being spiritual
Suzanne McCarthy set me thinking in her comment on the gratuitous insertion of the word “spiritual” in many English translations of 1 Cor 1:7.
ὥστε ὑμᾶς μὴ ὑστερεῖσθαι ἐν μηδενὶ χαρίσματι ἀπεκδεχομένους τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ·
So that you lack no [spiritual] gift as you wait eagerly for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The translations that insert “spiritual” before gift include RSV, NRSV, NET, HCSB, ESV, NAB and NIV. That represents a wide theological range from liberal to conservative and evangelical to catholic. While, like Suzanne, I have no objection to the insertion of words in the English text that are needed for translation, I wonder whether that insertion is justified here.
I consider the following:
- In Romans 1:7, Paul adds the adjective πνευματικὸν (pneumatikon – spiritual) when expressing a similar sentiment. It would suggest that he does not see the idea of “spiritual” automatically included in the semantic field of χάρισμα (charisma – gift).
- In Romans 5:15-16, he seems to use it with the more-or-less synonymous stylistic variations δωρεὰ (dōrea) and δώρημα (dōrēma) both also meaning gift. (Here some translations decide to amplify either one or the other or both words with the adjective “free” as they do also in Rom 6:23)
- Paul does not associate the word exclusively with the new covenant, or the Spirit, as he shows by using the same word in Rom 11:29 for the gifts God gave to Israel.
- Then there is the sense of specific and diverse gifts, shared differently among members of the Church, which fall into the category of what is commonly meant by “spiritual gifts” or charismata. When Paul discusses these in Romans, he does so without any overt reference to the Holy Spirit. (The specific reference to gifts is Rom 12:6.) Likewise the first (often neglected) mention in 1 Corinthians (7:7), to celibacy, makes no specific mention of the Spirit. Only when we turn to 1 Corinthians 12 is there mention of the Spirit. With the somewhat bizarre exception of the NAB, as far as I can tell, no translation inserts the adjective “spiritual” here. All the gifts are implicitly “gifts of the Spirit”, but this is not conveyed by the word charisma, but by the references to the Spirit.
I remain puzzled by the introduction of the word “spiritual” as a qualifier of “gift.” Paul’s use of the word charisma (and he is the primary user of it) suggests that he does not think the word includes the ideas conveyed by “spiritual” but needs to add that idea by other references to the Spirit. Given how strongly ideas of “spiritual gifts” have sometimes been contested by some people, charisma is probably worth a more transparent and careful translation than many of our English versions give it.
Perhaps, if we think there was for Paul (as I suspect there may be) a linguistic as well as theological connection between charis (grace) and charisma (gift), we would be better to consistently (if somewhat tautologically) translate “gracious gift”.