theological absolute. The source of the slogan is debatable.15 Possibly the Corinthians had turned a Pauline position into a slogan for their own purposes. If so, their error would lie in making absolute what for Paul would always have been qualified by his “in Christ” perspective.16 For him it is only as one is in Christ that “everything is permitted me,” and in any case that would have to do with adiaphora (the nonessentials: food, drink, days, circumcision, etc.), not with Christian ethics.