04_Peters_copiaaa_67-84 28/04/15 12:15 Pagina 67 Crowns in 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and 1 Corinthians Crowns are a recurring motif in the Pauline letters and their re- ception 1. Yet, whereas in 1 Thess 2,19 and Phil 4,1 the community is Paul’s crown, 1 Corinthians exhorts readers to run toward the “imperishable crown” (9,25). Despite the pronounced contrast, scholarship has merged the crown in 1 Corinthians with those of 1 Thessalonians and Philippians 2. I will argue that the crown in 1 Corinthi- ans, unlike those of Philippians and 1 Thessalonians, establishes an economy of religious competition. This agonistic ethic serves as a response to the more contentious relationship that the Corinthians have with Paul and each other. The Corinthians will share status neither with Paul nor with their fellow congregants. The Philippian and Thessalonian willingness to be Paul’s laurels is in juxtaposition with the Corinthian competition for civic honors. The athletic met- aphors of 1 Corinthians are thus not simply “local color”, an element to prove Paul’s status as someone with the necessary cultural knowledge to offer advice on life at Corinth 3. Nor do they restrict their concern to individual discipline, reinforcing Paul’s recommendation of re- fraining from the consumption of idol meat 4. The intent behind Paul’s athletic metaphors in 1 Corinthians, I submit, also interacts 1 John Chrysostom, Basil of Caesarea, and Theodoret of Cyrrhus all held that the crown was a Pauline promise for the eschatological reward of all chil- dren of faith. See S.J. DAVIS, “Completing the Race and Receiving the Crown: 2 Timothy 4,7-8 in Early Christian Monastic Epitaphs at Kellia and Pherme”, Asceticism and Exegesis in Early Christianity. The Reception of New Testa- ment Texts in Ancient Ascetic Discourses (ed. H.-U. WEIDEMANN) (NTOA 101; Göttingen 2013) 342. 2 R.L. PLUMMER, “Imitation of Paul and the Church’s Missionary Role in 1 Corinthians”, JETS 44 (2001) 219-235. 3 For the crown as local color, see P. BACHMANN, Der erste Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (Leipzig 1921) 327; A. ROBERTSON – A. PLUMMER, First Corinthians (Edinburgh 1910) 193; K. BAUS, Der Kranz in Antike und Christentum (Bonn 1940) 170. For literary and material evidence for the Isth- mian crown, see O. BRONEER, “The Isthmian Victory Crown”, American Journal of Archaeology 66 (1962) 259-263. 4 V.C. PFITZNER, Paul and the Agon Motif. Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature (Leiden 1967) 134. BIBLICA 96.1 (2015) 67-84