On Love’s Form:
A platonic analysis of Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians.
Michael Vossen

The ideas of Love expressed in Paul’s Letters to the Corinthians and Plato’s
Symposium are, despite differences in method, purpose, and belief, remarkably similar. For both, love’s highest form is eternal, separate from material objects, and only partially comprehendible in this world, among other things. Both advocate knowing love’s highest form as a way to live a virtuous life. Their ideas are not the same, though, as Plato’s definition has a broader scope than Paul’s definition, which leads to different virtuous lives. These differences can be explained by the differences in purpose, method and beliefs held by the two authors.
Socrates makes Plato’s idea of love clear. Socrates explains that Diatoma, a priestess, taught him what love is when he was younger, and he agrees with her definition. Diatoma says “love is the desire to have the good forever.”1 ‘The good’ is the platonic form of good, and it encompasses all virtues, including beauty. Thus, the love of ideas and platonic forms is the highest form of love, because these are the only things that can be perfectly good and eternal. Material things’ beauty fades with time, people may become unvirtuous, but the virtues themselves are unchanging and eternal. Diatoma suggests that through a progression of loving things, a single person, that person’s mind/virtues, virtues in general, laws, thoughts, and finally love itself, a person might see true beauty. Diatoma’s progression causes a person to recognize that immaterial, universal things exist. This leads to knowledge of the platonic forms. This knowledge may finally fulfill the desire to possesses the good forever, for
“...when someone sees beauty with the part that can see it, that he’ll be able
to give birth not to just images of virtue (since it’s not images he’s in touch with),
but to true virtue (since it’s true beauty he’s in touch with). It’s someone who’s
given birth to true virtue and brought it up who has the chance of becoming
loved by the Gods, and immortal- if any human can be immortal”2
For Paul’s idea of love to be similar to Plato’s, love needs to be immaterial, like the form of the good, provide a virtuous life through it’s recognition, and be desirable for it’s eternalness.

Paul’s idea of love is immaterial. Love as purely bodily desire is distinguished and criticized early in both works. In the Symposium, Phaedrus’ eulogy is criticized by Pausanius for not distinguishing between a common and heavenly conception of love.3 Pausanius explains that the common notion, in which people “...are attracted to women as much as boys, and to bodies rather than minds.”4 is associated with inappropriate and unjust behavior in it’s followers. Through the rest of his speech, Pausanius concerns himself with creating laws that restrict the common notion’s inappropriate influence.

Like Pausanius, Paul is concerned with inappropriate conceptions of love. For example, Paul warns the Corinthians “... not to associate with sexually immoral persons.” 5 A sexually immoral person is a man or women who is “sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber.”6. Paul’s domain of the sexually immoral probably includes all “Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers...”7, though Paul does not explicitly identify these people as sexually immoral. Paul creates guidelines for members of his religion to restrict the immorality among them by separating immoral and moral desires and suggesting proper conduct. For example, Paul recommends that the unmarried and widows remain unmarried, as to control sexual immorality.8 Thus, both Paul and Plato concern themselves with identifying and promoting lovers’ proper conduct.

While Paul does not describe what his sexually immoral people are attracted to, Paul’s sexually immoral person appears to hold “common notions” of love, as Paul’s examples are all connected by attraction to physical things. This physical, “common” love is an inferior type of love for both Paul and Plato. Both present physical loves’ desire for material objects as leading a person possessing only a common notion of love to committing immoral actions. As both authors praise a different type of love, this distinction probably results from worries that a reader might confuse a common notion of love with the better aspect of love. The common, strictly material concept is thus distinguished and separated from love’s better conception.

Paul’s love could be like the form of the good, but what Paul means by ‘Love’ is unclear. Paul could be talking about love as a thing or love as a relationship between two things. If love is a thing, then how does one possess it? For love is not material, so it cannot be found or possessed like an object. Paul probably means love as a relation between two things. More specifically, love for Paul probably means a relation between man and God. During his talk about marriage and the duties shared by husband and wife, Paul never describes the relation between men and women as love. Furthermore, all references to love in the Letter to the Corinthians describe the love between man and God, or are directed at love itself. Thus, Paul’s love, taken literally, is the desire for God. God is like a platonic form. Paul uses God as the platonic trait’s source, or as their combination into one being. To justify this claim, it is sufficient to look back to the text.

A similarity between Aristophanes’ separated lovers and a passage in Letter to the Corinthians helps to analyze Paul’s ideas. Paul writes
“Do you not know that whomever is united with a prostitute becomes
one body with her? For it is said ‘ The two become one flesh’. But anyone
united with the Lord becomes one spirit with him.” 9
Paul’s warning against sex with prostitutes suggests that a person united with a prostitute gains the prostitute’s immoral characteristics. Aristophanes’ speech presents a similar idea: if Hephaestus offered to merge two lovers’ bodies into one,
“Everyone would think that what he was hearing now was just what he’d longed
for all this time: to come together and be fused with the one he loved and become
one instead of two.” 10

Interestingly, both see lovers as one person’s parts. The two lovers’ desire for union into one suggests that a lover recognizes and desires some characteristics in another person that they want to possess. The lovers’ union is like a merge of identity; there no longer exist two objects with different properties, but one object with both of the previous objects’ properties. Union with the Lord would therefore merge the Lord’s properties with the persons. If the Lord is virtuous, then the union is like a person seeing true beauty, as both make a person becomes more virtuous. The Lord is different from a platonic form in that the Lord is has more properties than a form. While the Lord’s unknowablity makes it hard to comprehend what all the Lord’s properties are, power, beauty, knowledge, and eternalness are a few properties possessed by the Lord. A person loving God at least becomes powerful, beautiful, knowledgeable, and eternal, for Paul writes:

“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and angels, but do not have love, I
am a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and
understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my
possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I might boast, but do not have
love, I gain nothing.” 11

Paul’s love contains or is a part of beauty, knowledge, power and an act’s goodness, because the actions he describes would normally be considered beautiful, knowledgeable, powerful and good, and the only thing missing from them is love. Paul could mean that love is like the sugar in cookies. If the sugar is removed, the cookie is no longer sweet. If I bake a cookie, as to harden it, but it does not have sugar, it is a flat biscuit. If this is Paul’s argument, then love is music’s attractive, knowledge’s meaningful, faith’s powerful, and piety’s good characteristic. Alternatively, Paul may mean that love is a necessary component of attractive speech, knowledge, faith and piety. Love may not be the source of beauty, meaning, power, and goodness, simply required among other traits for beauty, power, meaning, and goodness to exist. In this case, love is like one chemical of multiple chemicals necessary for a reaction. The reaction, which would be the beauty, power, goodness, or meaning, does not come from the love, but from love’s combination with other characteristics. Since Paul’s love is directed towards God, God is either the source of beauty, power, goodness, and meaning, or God is a necessary component of beauty, power, goodness, and meaning.

This differs from Plato, whose love is not beautiful.12Plato argues that people only desire what they do not have, so love itself is not beautiful, because it desires beauty.13 For Plato, beauty and good are two distinct platonic forms. While they can both exist in an object at one time, they are not the same thing. If God is like a platonic form, then God is all the platonic forms, for if God was not, then God would be separate from some platonic form. If God is separate from some platonic form, then God is gaining that forms characteristic from something other than himself. God, as described in Genesis, created all things, so, under this assumption, everything comes from God, so it is not the case that there exists something separate from God. Thus, for Paul, God probably is all the platonic forms, and the love of God is the love of the good.

For Paul, the love of God leads to virtuous acts, through service to the Lord. It is unclear whether these acts are similar to the Platonic acts of love. Paul writes:

“The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the
Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please
his wife, and his interests are divided.”14

,If pleasing the Lord only means praying, sacrifice, and fasting, then Paul’s actions are contrary to the Platonic lover-unless praying, fasting, and sacrifice involve rationally analyzing the Lord’s form. If pleasing the Lord means establishing religious institutions, almsgiving, and creating ethical doctrine meant to improve the communities’ morality, then the Lord’s affairs are like Diatona’s children of the mind- creating laws/programs to benefit humanity. The children of the mind are the results of love in more universal, higher, way. Laws and religious institutions are created to further the communities good. People who create these laws love all virtuous people within the community, and see beauty within all members. Paul’s idea of love could be similar to Plato’s, but, like the problems raised in the Euthyphro regarding piety, it is unclear what exactly pleases the Lord, and what the Lord’s affairs are. The actions could be good because they are pleasing to the Lord, or they could be pleasing to the Lord because they are good. If the acts are good because they are pleasing to the Lord, it is unclear what is pleasing about them. If the acts are pleasing because they are good, than goodness seems separate from the Lord, which is probably contradictory for Paul.

For Paul, good actions lead to immortality. Paul writes:

“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable
and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on
imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then
the saying that is written will be fulfilled.”15

, which is his premise for:

“Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling
in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your
labor is not in vain.”16

. Thus, love is desirable because of the eternalness gained through acts of love. Interestingly, marriage is no longer a means to immortality under Paul’s reasoning. If reproduction is an act of love that brings a sort of immortality, and if a person can become immortal by loving and serving God, then reproduction is not necessary for immortality. Furthermore, if the apocalypse will end this world, then marriage ceases to be a method of obtaining immortality. So, under Paul’s thought, reproduction is not an act that will help people acquire the good forever. Following this reasoning, laws, writing, noble acts, and all other material and temporal actions that are enacted to obtain the good forever are not acts of love, for they cannot obtain the good forever. Only God is good forever, thus the only act of love to perform is the act in which one unites with God.

There are many differences between Paul and Plato’s thoughts, which probably occur due to differences in purpose, method, and belief. Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians 1 is written not primarily as a discourse on love’s nature, but as an argument for communal unity directed towards Christian factions in Corinthia. As such, Paul’s purpose is to persuade the Corinthians towards this end. Thus, his language and style may be tailored to a Corinthian audience, and he may be using Corinthian concepts and ideas that are not necessarily in complete agreement with his own. The similarities may be tools for persuasion, and thus will not completely represent what Paul believes.

The apocalypse’s imminence also modifies Paul’s advice. For example, Paul advises the virgins, “...in view of the impending crisis, it is well for you to remain as you are.”17. The virgins might live differently if not for the impending crisis, assuming that the impending crisis is the apocalypse, in which the virgins are better off as virgins. So, Paul’s advice is constrained by time; the end is near, and people must recognize the truth or perish. Paul’s sincerity is questionable, because a lie or oversimplification might be justified if it can persuade someone to Christianity, which for Paul, would give the person a better life.

Paul’s love’s specificity is problematic in determining love’s scope. Paul does not create a general, encompassing definition of love, but rather cites various examples of what it is and what it is not. These specific examples are descriptively and poetically powerful, though do little to explain what love is. Paul’s description is thus ambiguous, as without defining his terms, he leaves his description open to interpretation. This is problematic in that readers may graft their own subjective notions of love into Paul’s letter. Paul may not have even had an explanation in mind. His descriptions are certainly persuasive if not meaningful, and his goal is to persuade a group to act a certain way, not to explain how one thing is. This is like the poetic descriptions of love in the Symposium.

Plato identifies problems resulting from poetic descriptions that do not accurately describe love’s meaning. Paul does not. In the Symposium, Agathon beautifully describes love in a classic eulogistic form. Agathon describes love’s virtues, writing:

“Love drains us of estrangement and fills us with familiarity, causing us
to come together in all shared gatherings like this, and acting as our leader
in festival, chorus and sacrifice, He includes mildness and excludes wildness.
He is gracious and kindly; gazed on by the wise, by the Gods; craved by those denied him, treasured by those enjoying him...”18
Likewise, Paul writes:

“ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice
in wrong doings, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.”19

While both descriptions are poetic, beautiful and moving, they also, unfortunately, do not accurately explain love’s meaning. Socrates’ criticism, that the speakers are claiming the best features for their subject, whether their claims are true or not, seems applicable here.20For example, it seems folly to describe love as rejoicing in the truth when it believes all things, for love then could believe contradictory things, one of which must be false. Paul could have a different truth in mind, but what that truth is is unclear.

To Paul, people’s love of the physical may not be love at all; only the love of God is called love. If the love of God is the only love, then people are not mistaking the beauty in objects as the highest beauty, but rather, their desire is some new word for not behaving in the right matter. It is strange that in talking about marriage, which seems to involve love, Paul does not actually mention love. Marriage is for those who are not able to control their passion; if a man has uncontrollable desires, it is better for him to limit them to a single women. In discussing how husbands and wives should act, Paul writes “This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am.”21 . Paul is unmarried. So, Paul thinks everyone should be unmarried. Thus, marriage is separate from real love.

Finally, Paul’s ideas of love differ from Plato’s in that Paul’s relies on faith in the Lord’s dictates more than reason. Paul does not explain why immoral actions are wrong. Paul gives no reason other than God’s disapproval. Paul’s explanation of love comes from an unquestionable divine authority. It seems like Paul cannot explain why his description is right to his audience. People who do not understand God are not helped by Paul’s explanation and recommendations. If good actions are based on pleasing God, and a person does not understand God, that person will not know how to perform good actions. Sinners, people who commit bad actions, are expected to recognize their actions wrongness without knowledge of why the action is wrong, why God disallows one thing and allows another, and why right action is right. Expecting sinners to correct their actions based on unrelatable laws is an unrealistic expectation. Who considers an action wrong without explanation of why an action is wrong? Faith, an unquestioning acceptance and trust of an unknown principle, can be held for both true and false statements, regardless of their apparent validity in this world. Plato’s description relies on reason, which relies on the audiences’ experience and things existing in this world. If human experience, and the rationality developed from that experience is not a source of knowledge, than what can be called knowledge?


Notes
*Page numbers from the Symposium are taken from the universal notation on the side of the book, not from specific pages in the book.
1. Symposium: 206.a
2. Symposium: 212.a
3. Symposium: 180c-181.e
4. Symposium: 181.b
5. Letter to the Corinthians: 5.9
6. Letter to the Corinthians: 5.11
7. Letter to the Corinthians: 6.9
8. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.8
9. Letter to the Corinthians: 6.12
10. Symposium: 192.e
11. Letter to the Corinthians: 13.1-3
12. Symposium: 201.a-b.
13. Symposium: 200b-d
14. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.32
15. Letter to the Corinthians: 15.54
16. Letter to the Corinthians: 15.58
17. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.25
18. Symposium: 197.d-e.
19. Letter to the Corinthians: 13.4-8
20. Symposium: 198 .e
21. Letter to the Corinthians: 7.6-8

Undeveloped thoughts and unanswered questions
-God’s disapproval, rather than transcend the bad actions, reinforces them through its disapproval. The actions become rebellious, and this rebellion through committing them makes them attractive. Platonic thought transcends this problem – it does not deny the pleasure gained through the actions, but suggests that the person has not realized that the actions pleasure is incomplete, and in some cases, non-pleasure.

- Both Paul and Plato recognize that their knowledge is incomplete. A major theme in Plato’s works is Socrates’ ignorance of things other than himself. Through carefully analyzing people’s claims to knowledge, Socrates reveals moral issues inherent complexity.
“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we
know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes,
the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I
thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an
end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see
face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have
been fully known. And now faith, hope and love abide, these three; and the
greatest of these is love. 13.8-13
What is Paul trying to say?

- (this is oversimplified and needs more thought). Plato’s notion of love is more forgiving. People love objects, people, etc because they see something beautiful/eternal/good in them that they want for themselves. Their desires are not perverse and amoral, simply incomplete, ignorant and capable of being developed. Where Paul’s flaws leads to God’s resent and eventual damnation, Plato sees human error as causing hurt to the individual, in them living a poorer life. Error in Plato is only wrong if it is not learned from- full knowledge, which leads to a full life, can be obtained from examined experience. In this way the Roman’s criticism of Christianity, that it hates humanity is correct. Only a life with minimal error, through utter adherence to Christian beliefs, can be fully called good in Christian thought. Mistakes, an important source of experience, detract from a good life. But can a life without mistakes, without pain, and trial, and joy and sexual feelings, and varieties of human experience even be called a life? Should we count unfortunate those who have never been unfortunate? Has a person who has lived with minimal error through faith overcome a desire for power, pleasure, fame, fortune and self-engrandising? Or are these desires suppressed and not spoken of? Are they enacted upon, by re-defining morality, like Nietzsche’s usurper of classical good? Discussing a good life is a topic in itself, and would stray beyond this paper’s bounds. Yet it is good to question what a good life is to Paul, and wonder if it is something we want to live.
Bibliography
The Symposium. Plato. Translated by Christopher Gill. Published by Penguin classics, 1999. Copyright Christopher Gill.

Plato, The Collected Dialogues. Plato. Edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns. Published by Princeton University Press, at Princeton, New Jersey.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. Edited by Michael D. Coogan. Published by Oxford University Press in Oxford, New York.