Pauline Christianity

[Ronin Truth]

Pauline Christianity

Pauline Christianity is the Christianity associated with the beliefs and doctrines espoused by Paul the Apostle through his writings. Most of Christianity relies heavily on these teachings and considers them to be amplifications and explanations of the teachings of Jesus. Others perceive in Paul's writings teachings that are different from the original teachings of Jesus documented in the canonical gospels, early Acts and the rest of the New Testament, such as the Epistle of James.

"Pauline Christianity", as an expression, first came into use in the 20th century among scholars who proposed different strands of thought within Early Christianity, wherein Paul was a powerful influence.[SUP][2][/SUP] It has come into widespread use among non-Christian scholars, and depends on the claim that the form of the faith found in the writings of Paul is different from that found elsewhere in the New Testament, but also that his influence came to predominate.

Proponents of the perceived, distinctive Pauline form of Christianity, include Marcion of Sinope, the 2nd century theologian and excommunicated heresiarch, who asserted that Paul was the only apostle who had rightly understood the new message of salvation as delivered by Jesus Christ. Opponents of the same era include the Ebionites and Nazarenes, Jewish Christians who rejected Paul for straying from Second Temple Judaism.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]

Reference is made to the large number of non-canonical texts,[SUP][3][/SUP] some of which have been discovered during the last 100 years, which show the many movements and strands of thought emanating from Jesus' life and teaching or which may be contemporary with them, some of which can be contrasted with Paul's thought. Of the more significant are Ebionism and Gnosticism. However, there is no universal agreement as to Gnosticism's relationship to Christianity or to the writings of Paul. The expression is used by modern Christian scholars, such as Ziesler[SUP][4][/SUP] and Mount, whose interest is in the recovery of Christian origins and the contribution made by Paul to Christian doctrine, Christian Reconstructionism and Restorationism.

Contents

• 1 Characteristics
  • 1.1 Political
  • 1.2 Theological
  • 1.3 Other views
• 2 Paul's view
• 3 As a pejorative term
• 4 See also
• 5 Notes
• 6 Further reading
• 7 External links

Characteristics

The characteristics of the critical use of the term take a number of forms. They are partly political and partly theological.

Political

From a political perspective, Robert Eisenman sees Pauline Christianity as a method of taming a dangerous sect among radical Jews and making it palatable to Roman authorities.[SUP][5][/SUP] Pauline Christianity was essentially based on Rome and made use of the administrative skills which Rome had honed. Its system of organization with a single bishop for each town was, in Bart Ehrman's view, the means by which it obtained its hegemony.[SUP][6][/SUP]

Theological

The theological aspect is the claim that Paul transmuted Jesus the Jewish messiah into the universal (in a wider meaning "catholic") Savior. Pauline theology is also a term referring to the teaching and doctrines especially espoused by the apostle Paul through his writings. Mainstream Christianity relies on Paul’s writings as integral to the biblical theology of the New Testament and regards them as amplifications and explanations consistent with the teachings of Jesus and other New Testament writings. Christian scholars generally use the term expressing interest in the recovery of Christian origins and the contribution made by Paul to Christian doctrine. Others, especially non-Christian scholars, claim to see a Pauline distinction different from that found elsewhere in the New Testament, a distinction that unduly influenced later Christianity.

Other views

The use of the term by Christian scholars, such as John Ziesler,[SUP][7][/SUP] is altogether different. Pauline Christianity is the development of thinking about Jesus in a gentile missionary context; Christopher Rowlands concludes that Paul did not materially alter the teachings of Jesus. Much of this view turns on the significance of the Council of Jerusalem. According to this view, James decreed that Christianity was for the Gentiles and not just for the Jews, and quoted the prophet Amos in support of this position (the Apostolic Decree is found in Acts 15:19–21). He entrusted Paul among others with bringing their decision to Antioch (15:22–31).

Christians themselves disagree as to how far there was tension between Paul and the Jerusalem Church.

One difficulty is the tension between Acts and Paul's letters; another is the disparity between his views in different letters. Galatians is reserved about the teaching of the Jerusalem church and is hostile toward Jews who would impose Jewish distinctives, codified in the Mosaic Law, on Gentile converts; in Romans Paul is deeply concerned about the spiritual condition and ultimate destiny of the Jewish people.

Paul's view

That people saw different disciples of Christ as representing different teachings was addressed by Paul himself, in the First Epistle to the Corinthians: (1 Cor 1:10-18)

I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas (Peter)"; still another, "I follow Christ."

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
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As a pejorative term

The pejorative use of the expressions "Pauline Christianity", "Paulism" or "Paulanity"[SUP][8][/SUP] relies in part upon a thesis that Paul's supporters, as a distinct group, had an undue influence on the formation of the canon of scripture, and also that certain bishops, especially the Bishop of Rome, influenced the debates by which the dogmatic formulations known as the creeds came to be produced, thus ensuring a Pauline interpretation of the gospel. The thesis is founded on differences between the views of Paul and the Apostles in Jerusalem, and also between the picture of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles and his own writings, such that it is claimed that the essential Jewish or Old Testament character of the faith was lost.

Christian anarchists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Ammon Hennacy, believe Paul distorted Jesus' teachings. Tolstoy claims Paul was instrumental in the church's "deviation" from Jesus' teaching and practices, whilst Hennacy believed "Paul spoiled the message of Christ."[SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP] Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, wrote in the latter half of the 2nd century that the Ebionites rejected Paul as an apostate from the law, using only a version of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, known as the Gospel of the Ebionites.

The argument made that Christian doctrine (that is, the teachings of Jesus) was subsequently distorted by Paul and the Church of Rome depends on a view as to how the canon of Scripture came to be compiled, about which little is known. The earliest references to Paul's writing are fragmentary: Clement of Rome, writing about AD 95, quotes from Romans; Ignatius of Antioch (d. AD 115) quotes from 1 Corinthians, Romans, and from 1 Timothy and Titus as if authoritative, not merely as the opinion of one writer.[SUP][citation needed]
[/SUP]
As to his influence, there are considerable differences of scholarly opinion concerning how far Paul did in fact influence Christian doctrine. Among the most radical is G. A. Wells, a professor of German rather than of theology or history, whose view is that Jesus was a mythical figure and that Christianity was in good part invented by Paul. More widely influential is the view of the 19th-century German theologian F. C. Baur,[SUP][11][/SUP] founder of the Tübingen school, that Paul was utterly opposed to the disciples, based upon his view that Acts was late and unreliable and who contended that Catholic Christianity was a synthesis of the views of Paul and the Judaizing church in Jerusalem. Since Adolf von Harnack, the Tübingen position has been generally abandoned,[SUP][12][/SUP] though the view that Paul took over the faith and transformed the Jewish teacher to the Son of God is still widely canvassed.[SUP][13][/SUP] It depends on a comparison between the books of the New Testament which cannot be made here, but see Paul the Apostle, and the claims of Ultradispensationalists such as E. W. Bullinger who view the distinction abhorred by the Ebionites as positive and essential doctrine.[SUP][14]
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On the other side, the idea that Paul invented Christianity is disputed by numerous Christian writers.[SUP][15][/SUP][SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][17][/SUP][SUP][18][/SUP][SUP][19][/SUP] Christopher Rowland contends that, "the extent of his influence on Christian thought has been overestimated".[SUP][20][/SUP] Thus, though thirteen letters under his name appear in the New Testament, the great controversies of the 3rd and 4th centuries were about the Person of Christ and the nature of God — the so-called Christological and Trinitarian debates — in which St. Paul does not greatly feature; likewise, the Nicene Creed contains no doctrine of atonement. Moreover, while the influence of the Church of Rome was very important in the credal debates, Greek theologians such as Athanasius, the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa were formidable figures. The resolution of these controversies at the Council of Chalcedon was not dictated by the Bishop of Rome or Latin Christendom, but was made more difficult by the necessary task of translating technical terms between the two languages of Greek and Latin, and not by arguments over Pauline theology.

As for the New Testament itself, there are evident tensions between the Judaizing party and Paul's views, which are made plain by a comparison between Acts and Paul's letters. How far Paul is to be taken as anti-Jewish (pro-Hellenization or Romanization) is a matter of disagreement, but there has been widespread acknowledgement of the view of W. D. Davies that the essential Jewishness of Paul's Christian perspective has been underplayed. In Davies' view, Paul replaced the Torah, the Jewish Law or Mosaic Law, with Christ.

In any case, "the problems with which he wrestles in his letters were probably typical of many which were facing the Christian sect during this period".[SUP][21][/SUP][SUP][full citation needed][/SUP]

Further, by contrast one of the common features of Protestant churches, certainly in English-speaking countries and those influenced by the reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin, is their use of formulations other than the ancient Creeds, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, in which Pauline formulations play a much greater part. Ideas such as justification by faith, which, though not absent from Catholic formulations, play a much more central role in Protestant thinking, where they are considered fundamental Christian truths and essential for defining the Gospel.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]

As to the hypothesis that Paul distorted rather than developed the faith, this depends upon a judgment as to wherein lies the right path. Henry Chadwick, former Oxford don, commented about a later controversy: "It was not that the heretics departed from the road; it was that they took a path along which the road was not subsequently built." Roman Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, conservative Protestants, and most Messianic Jews contend that Paul's writings were a legitimate interpretation of the Gospel. Those who disagree with them either argue that Paul distorted the original and true faith or claim that Christianity is, largely, his invention. The former include such secular commentators [SUP][22][/SUP] as the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell, whose criticisms are based upon their moral objections to Paul's thought; other thinkers, such as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou, also agree with this interpretation, but hold much more positive opinions about Paul's theological influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Christianity

 

[Ronin Truth]

Paulinism Theology of Paul [SIZE=+2]Advanced Information [/SIZE]The term is used to describe the type of theology which looks to Paul, rather than to other NT authors, for its chief inspiration. The Reformation was essentially a revival of Paulinism, for the distinctive Pauline doctrine of justification by faith was and has remained for all Protestant churches "the article of faith by which the Church stands or falls" (Luther). In broader terms, however, the whole Western church may be regarded as "Pauline," over against the Orthodox churches of the East, which look rather to John for the NT foundation of their theology. Here Augustine's influence has meant that the Western churches, Catholic and Protestant alike, are partners in a theological tradition which values legal categories of thought and metaphors as the most fruitful way of talking about the relationship between God and the world, and which therefore regards justification as the central soteriological issue, even if Catholic and Protestant interpret Paul's teaching differently. Lutheran theologians have generally been conscious of the priority they give to Paul, but recently three factors have contributed to a growing feeling that this exaltation is questionable. Ecclesiastically, the ecumenical movement has made Western theologians more aware of the Eastern theological tradition with its very different approach to justification and Pauline theology generally. Theologically, the awareness has grown that religious language can only hint and suggest, never describe, so that perhaps legal language is only one of several possible metaphor groups that may validly be used to talk about God and the world. And in NT scholarship a sharper awareness of the parallel but distinct historical development of the different theological streams within the NT (Pauline, Johannine, Synoptic, etc,) has led to a desire to interpret each within its own terms and not to seek out a "canon within the canon" on the basis of which the rest of the Bible can be interpreted. Ecumenical conversations are therefore found to be mirrored within the NT itself, so that the issue of diversity and unity in the NT has tremendous modern relevance.

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problem are available today. The traditional Lutheran - Protestant solution is still well represented: it distinguishes an original, pure, Pauline gospel from "Early Catholicism," a term used to describe the earliest movements, traceable in the NT itself, toward a Catholic emphasis on the sacraments, ordered ministry, and an ethical Christianity (regarded as a degeneration from the truth). Some scholars even find this degeneration in Paul himself, and so locate pure Paulinism only in the earliest epistles. Another approach identifies a common denominator between Paul and the other NT authors and questions the possibility of finding theological harmony outside this center. For Dunn, the NT authors agree in identifying Jesus of Nazareth with the risen and exalted Christ, but beyond that show very substantial diversity of thought, so that Paulinism is simply one version of Christianity, inevitably existing in tension with other versions.

Recently a third approach has appeared, associated particularly with the German scholars Martin Hengel and Peter Stuhlmacher, which asserts a substantial unity between the main NT streams by finding in them the same central theological ideas differently expressed and applied. The heart of Pauline as of Johannine theology is thus the proclamation of Jesus as the messianic Reconciler who dies a sacrificial death for the people of God.

NT scholarship is in a considerable state of flux, matching that in the parallel area of ecumenism. Whatever the outcome, we must affirm that those for whom, like Luther, the Epistle to the Romans contains "the purest gospel" have not misplaced their faith.

S Motyer
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography

J D G Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the NT; E Kasemann, "The Problem of a NT Theology," NTS 19; J W Drane, "Tradition, Law and Ethics in Pauline Theology," NovT 16; M Hengel, The Atonement.

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Saul of Tarsus

Jewish Viewpoint Information

The actual founder of the Christian Church as opposed to Judaism; born before 10 C.E.; died after 63. The records containing the views and opinions of the opponents of Paul and Paulinism are no longer in existence; and the history of the early Church has been colored by the writers of the second century, who were anxious to suppress or smooth over the controversies of the preceding period, as is shown in the Acts of the Apostles and also by the fact that the Epistles ascribed to Paul, as has been proved by modern critics, are partly spurious (Galatians, Ephesians, I and II Timothy, Titus, and others) and partly interpolated.

Not a Hebrew Scholar; a Hellenist.

Saul (whose Roman cognomen was Paul; see Acts xiii. 9) was born of Jewish parents in the first decade of the common era at Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts ix. 11, xxi. 39, xxii. 3). The claim in Rom. xi. 1 and Phil. iii. 5 that he was of the tribe of Benjamin, suggested by the similarity of his name with that of the first Israelitish king, is, if the passages are genuine, a false one, no tribal lists or pedigrees of this kind having been in existence at that time (see Eusebius, "Hist. Eccl." i. 7, 5; Pes. 62b; M. Sachs, "Beiträge zur Sprach- und Alterthumsforschung," 1852, ii. 157). Nor is there any indication in Paul's writings or arguments that he had received the rabbinical training ascribed to him by Christian writers, ancient and modern; least of all could he have acted or written as he did had he been, as is alleged (Acts xxii. 3), the disciple of Gamaliel I., the mild Hillelite. His quotations from Scripture, which are all taken, directly or from memory, from the Greek version, betray no familiarity with the original Hebrew text. The Hellenistic literature, such as the Book of Wisdom and other Apocrypha, as well as Philo (see Hausrath, "Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte," ii. 18-27; Siegfried, "Philo von Alexandria," 1875, pp. 304-310; Jowett, "Commentary on the Thessalonians and Galatians," i. 363-417), was the sole source for his eschatological and theological system.

Notwithstanding the emphatic statement, in Phil. iii. 5, that he was "a Hebrew of the Hebrews"-a rather unusual term, which seems to refer to his nationalistic training and conduct (comp. Acts xxi. 40, xxii. 2), since his Jewish birth is stated in the preceding words "of the stock of Israel"-he was, if any of the Epistles that bear his name are really his, entirely a Hellenist in thought and sentiment. As such he was imbued with the notion that "the whole creation groaneth" for liberation from "the prison-house of the body," from this earthly existence, which, because of its pollution by sin and death, is intrinsically evil (Gal. i. 4; Rom. v. 12, vii. 23-24, viii. 22; I Cor. vii. 31; II Cor. v. 2, 4; comp. Philo, "De Allegoriis Legum," iii. 75; idem, "De Vita Mosis," iii. 17; idem, "De Ebrietate," § 26; and Wisdom ii.24). As a Hellenist, also, he distinguished between an earthly and a heavenly Adam (I Cor. xv. 45-49; comp. Philo, "De Allegoriis Legum," i. 12), and, accordingly, between the lower psychic. life and the higher spiritual life attained only by asceticism (Rom. xii. 1; I Cor. vii. 1-31, ix. 27, xv. 50; comp. Philo, "De Profugis," § 17; and elsewhere). His whole state of mind shows the influence of the theosophic or Gnostic lore of Alexandria, especially the Hermes literature recently brought to light by Reizenstein in his important work "Poimandres," 1904 (see Index, s. v. "Paulus," "Briefe des Paulus," and "Philo"); hence his strange belief in supernatural powers (Reizenstein, l.c. pp. 77, 287), in fatalism, in "speaking in tongues" (I Cor. xii.-xiv.; comp. Reizenstein, l.c. p. 58; Dieterich, "Abraxas," pp. 5 et seq.; Weinel, "Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister," 1899, pp. 72 et seq.; I Cor. xv. 8; II Cor. xii. 1-6; Eph. iii. 3), and in mysteries or sacraments (Rom. xvi. 25; Col. i. 26, ii. 2, iv. 3; Eph. i. 9, iii. 4, vi. 19)-a term borrowed solely from heathen rites.

His Epilepsy.

There is throughout Paul's writings an irrational or pathological element which could not but repel the disciples of the Rabbis. Possibly his pessimistic mood was the result of his physical condition; for he suffered from an illness which affected both body and mind. He speaks of it as "a thorn in the flesh," and as a heavy stroke by "a messenger of Satan" (II Cor. xii. 7), which often caused him to realize his utter helplessness, and made him an object of pity and horror (Gal. iv. 13). It was, as Krenkel ("Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Geschichte und Briefe des Apostels Paulus," 1890, pp. 47-125) has convincingly shown, epilepsy, called by the Greeks "the holy disease," which frequently put him into a state of ecstasy, a frame of mind that may have greatly impressed some of his Gentile hearers, but could not but frighten away and estrange from him the Jew, whose God is above all the God of reason (comp. II Cor. v. 13; x. 10; xi. 1, 16; xii. 6). The conception of a new faith, half pagan and half Jewish, such as Paul preached, and susceptibility to its influences, were altogether foreign to the nature of Jewish life and thought. For Judaism, religion is the hallowing of this life by the fulfilment of its manifold duties (see Judaism): Paul shrank from life as the domain of Satan and all his hosts of evil; he longed for redemption by the deadening of all desires for life, and strove for another world which he sawin his ecstatic visions. The following description of Paul is preserved in "Acta Pauli et Theclæ," an apocryphal book which has been proved to be older and in some respects of greater historic value than the canonical Acts of the Apostles (see Conybeare, "Apollonius' Apology and Acts, and Other Monuments of Early Christianity," pp. 49-88, London, 1894): "A man of moderate stature, with crisp [scanty] hair, crooked legs, blue eyes, large knit brows, and long nose, at times looking like a man, at times like an angel, Paul came forward and preached to the men of Iconium: 'Blessed are they that keep themselves chaste [unmarried]; for they shall be called the temple of God. Blessed are they that mortify their bodies and souls; for unto them speaketh God. Blessed are they that despise the world; for they shall be pleasing to God. Blessed be the souls and bodies of virgins; for they shall receive the reward of their chastity.'"

It was by such preaching that "he ensnared the souls of young men and maidens, enjoining them to remain single "(Conybeare, l.c. pp. 62, 63, 67; comp. ib. pp. 24-25; Gal. iii. 38; I Cor. vii. 34-36; Matt. xix. 12; Clement of Rome, Epistle ii. § 12).

Anti-Jewish Attitude.

Whatever the physiological or psychological analysis of Paul's temperament may be, his conception of life was not Jewish. Nor can his unparalleled animosity and hostility to Judaism as voiced in the Epistles be accounted for except upon the assumption that, while born a Jew, he was never in sympathy or in touch with the doctrines of the rabbinical schools. For even his Jewish teachings came to him through Hellenistic channels, as is indicated by the great emphasis laid upon "the day of the divine wrath" (Rom. i. 18; ii. 5, 8; iii. 5; iv. 15; v. 9; ix. 22; xii. 19; I Thess. i. 10; Col. iii. 6; comp. Sibyllines, iii. 309 et seq., 332; iv. 159, 161 et seq.; and elsewhere), as well as by his ethical monitions, which are rather inconsistently taken over from Jewish codes of law for proselytes, the Didache and Didascalia. It is quite natural, then, that not only the Jews (Acts xxi. 21), but also the Judæo-Christians, regarded Paul as an "apostate from the Law" (see Eusebius, l.c. iii. 27; Irenæus, "Adversus Hæreses," i. 26, 2; Origen, "Contra Celsum," v. 65; Clement of Rome, "Recognitiones," i. 70. 73).

His Personality.

To judge from those Epistles that have all the traits of genuineness and give a true insight into his nature, Paul was of a fiery temper, impulsive and impassioned in the extreme, of ever-changing moods, now exulting in boundless joy and now sorely depressed and gloomy. Effusive and excessive alike in his love and in his hatred, in his blessing and in his cursing, he possessed a marvelous power over men; and he had unbounded confidence in himself. He speaks or writes as a man who is conscious of a great providential mission, as the servant and herald of a high and unique cause. The philosopher and the Jew will greatly differ from him with regard to every argument and view of his; but both will admit that he is a mighty battler for truth, and that his view of life, of man, and of God is a profoundly serious one. The entire conception of religion has certainly been deepened by him, because his mental grasp was wide and comprehensive, and his thinking bold, aggressive, searching, and at the same time systematic. Indeed, he molded the thought and the belief of all Christendom.

Jewish Proselytism and Paul.

Before the authenticity of the story of the so-called conversion of Paul is investigated, it seems proper to consider from the Jewish point of view this question: Why did Paul find it necessary to create a new system of faith for the admission of the Gentiles, in view of the fact that the Synagogue had well-nigh two centuries before opened its door to them and, with the help of the Hellenistic literature, had made a successful propaganda, as even the Gospels testify? (Matt. xxiii. 15; see Schürer, "Gesch." 3d ed., iii. 102-135, 420-483; J. Bernays, "Gesammelte Abhandlungen," 1885, i. 192-282, ii. 71-80; Bertholet, "Die Stellung der Israeliten und Juden zu den Fremden," 1896, pp. 257-302.) Bertholet (l.c. pp. 303-334; but see Schürer, l.c. i. 126) and others, in order that they may reserve the claim of universality for Christianity, deny the existence of uncircumcised proselytes in Judaism, and misconstrue plain Talmudic and other statements referring to God-fearing Gentiles (Bertholet, l.c. pp. 338-339); whereas the very doctrine of Paul concerning the universal faith of Abraham (Rom. iv. 3-18) rests upon the traditional interpretation of Gen. xii. 3 (see Kuenen, "Prophets and Prophecy in Israel," pp. 379, 457) and upon the traditional view which made Abraham the prototype of a missionary bringing the heathen world under the wings of the Shekinah (Gen. R. xxxix., with reference to Gen. xii. 5; see Abraham; Judaism; Proselyte). As a matter of fact, only the Jewish propaganda work along the Mediterranean Sea made it possible for Paul and his associates to establish Christianity among the Gentiles, as is expressly recorded in the Acts (x. 2; xiii. 16, 26, 43, 50; xvi. 14; xvii. 4, 17; xviii. 7); and it is exactly from such synagogue manuals for proselytes as the Didache and the Didascalia that the ethical teachings in the Epistles of Paul and of Peter were derived (see Seeberg, "Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit," 1903, pp. 1-44).

The answer is supplied by the fact that Jewish proselytism had the Jewish nation as its basis, as the names "ger" and "ger toshab" for "proselyte" indicate. The proselyte on whom the Abrahamic rite was not performed remained an outsider. It was, therefore, highly important for Paul that those who became converted to the Church should rank equally with its other members and that every mark of distinction between Jew and Gentile should be wiped out in the new state of existence in which the Christians lived in anticipation. The predominating point of view of the Synagogue was the political and social one; that of the Church, the eschatological one. May such as do not bear the seal of Abraham's covenant upon their flesh or do not fulfil the whole Law be admitted into the congregation of the saints waiting for the world of resurrection? This was the question at issue between the disciples of Jesus and those of Paul; the former adhering to the view of the Essenes, which was also that of Jesus; the latter taking an independent position that started not from the Jewish but from the non-Jewish standpoint. Paul fashioned a Christ ofhis own, a church of his own, and a system of belief of his own; and because there were many mythological and Gnostic elements in his theology which appealed more to the non-Jew than to the Jew, he won the heathen world to his belief.

Paul's Christ.

In the foreground of all of Paul's teaching stands his peculiar vision of Christ, to which he constantly refers as his only claim and title to apostleship (I Cor. ix. 1, xv. 8; II Cor. xii. 1-7; Phil. iii. 9; Gal. i. 1, 12, 16, on which see below). The other apostles saw Jesus in the flesh; Paul saw him when, in a state of entrancement, he was carried into paradise to the third heaven, where he heard "unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter" (II Cor. xii. 2-4). Evidently this picture of Christ must have occupied a prominent place in his mind before, just as Meṭaṭron (Mithra) and Akteriel did in the minds of Jewish mystics (see Angelology; Merkabah). To him the Messiah was the son of God in a metaphysical sense, "the image of God" (II Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15), "the heavenly Adam" (I Cor. xv. 49; similar to the Philonic or cabalistic Adam Ḳadmon), the mediator between God and the world (I Cor. viii. 6), "the first-born of all creation, for by him were all things created" (Col. i. 15-17), identical also with the Holy Spirit manifested in Israel's history (I Cor. x. 4; II Cor. iii. 17; comp. Wisdom x. 1.-xii. 1; Philo, "De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiari Soleat," § 30; see also Jew. Encyc. x. 183b, s.v. Preexistence of the Messiah).

It is, however, chiefly as "the king of glory" (I Cor. ii. 8), as ruler of the powers of light and life eternal, that Christ is to manifest his cosmic power. He has to annihilate Satan or Belial, the ruler of this world of darkness and death, with all his hosts of evil, physical and moral (I Cor. xv. 24-26). Paul's "gnosis" (I Cor. viii. 1, 7; II Cor. ii. 14; I Tim. vi. 20) is a revival of Persian dualism, which makes of all existence, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, a battle between light and darkness (I Thess. v. 4-5; Eph. v. 8-13; Col. i. 13), between flesh and spirit (I Cor. xv. 48; Rom. viii. 6-9), between corruption and life everlasting (I Cor. xv. 50, 53). The object of the Church is to obtain for its members the spirit, the glory, and the life of Christ, its "head," and to liberate them from the servitude of and allegiance to the flesh and the powers of earth. In order to become participants in the salvation that had come and the resurrection that was nigh, the saints were to cast off the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light, the breastplate of love, and the helmet of hope (Rom. xiii. 12; II Cor. x. 4; Eph. vi. 11. I Thess. v. 8; comp. Wisdom v. 17-18; Isa. lix. 17; "the weapons of light of the people of Israel," Pesiḳ, R. 33 [ed. Buber, p. 154]; Targ. Yer. to Ex. xxxiii. 4; "the men of the shields" ["ba'ale teresin"], a name for high-ranking Gnostics, Ber. 27b; also "the vestiture of light" in Mandæan lore, "Jahrbuch für Protestantische Theologie," xviii. 575-576).

The Crucified Messiah.

How then can this world of perdition and evil, of sin and death, be overcome, and the true life be attained instead? This question, which, according to a Talmudic legend (Tamid 32a), Alexander the Great put to the wise men of the South, was apparently the one uppermost also in the mind of Paul (see Kabisch,"Die Eschatologie des Paulus," 1893); and in the form of a vision of the crucified Christ the answer came to him to "die in order to live." This vision, seen in his ecstatic state, was to him more than a mere reality: it was the pledge ("'erabon" of the resurrection and the life of which he was in quest. Having seen "the first-born of the resurrection" (I Cor. xv. 20-24; the Messiah is called "the first-born" also in Midr. Teh. to Ps. lxxxix. 28, and in Ex. R. xix. 7), he felt certain of the new life which all "the sons of light" were to share. No sooner had the idea taken hold of him that the world of resurrection, or "the kingdom of God," had come, or would come with the speedy reappearance of the Messiah, than he would invest with higher powers "the elect ones" who were to participate in that life of the spirit. There can be no sin or sensual passion in a world in which the spirit rules. Nor is there need of any law in a realm where men live as angels (comp. "The dead is free from all obligations of the Law," Shab. 30a, 151b; Niddah 61b). To bring back the state of paradise and to undo the sin of Adam, the work of the serpent, which brought death into the world-this seems to have been the dream of Paul. The baptism of the Church, to which sinners and saints, women and men, Jews and Gentiles, were alike invited, suggested to him the putting off of the earthly Adam and the putting on of the heavenly Adam (Rom. vi.). He was certain that by the very power of their faith, which performed all the wonders of the spirit in the Church (I Cor. xii., xv.), would the believers in Christ at the time of his reappearance be also miraculously lifted to the clouds and transformed into spiritual bodies for the life of the resurrection (I Thess. iv.; I Cor. xv.; Rom. viii.). These are the elements of Paul's theology-a system of belief which endeavored to unite all men, but at the expense of sound reason and common sense.

Paul's Conversion.

There is possibly a historical kernel to the story related in the Acts (vii. 58-ix. 1-31, xxii. 3-21, xxvi. 10-19), that, while on the road to Damascus, commissioned with the task of exterminating the Christian movement antagonistic to the Temple and the Law (ib. vi. 13), Paul had a vision in which Jesus appeared to him, saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" (comp. I Sam. xxvi. 18); that in consequence of this vision he became, with the aid of Ananais, one of the Christian seers, "a chosen vessel unto me [Christ], to bear my name before the Gentiles." According to the Acts (vii. 58; ix. 2; xxii. 5; xxv. 1, 10-12), Paul was a young man charged by the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem with the execution of Stephen and the seizure of the disciples of Jesus. The statement, however (ib. xxii. 8-9), that, being a zealous observer of the law of the Fathers, "he persecuted the Church unto death," could have been made only at a time when it was no longer known what a wide difference existed between the Sadducean high priests and elders, who had a vital interest in quelling the Christian movement, and the Pharisees, who had no reason for condemning to death either Jesusor Stephen. In fact, it is derived from the Epistle to the Galatians (i. 13-14), the spuriousness of which has been shown by Bruno Baur, Steck, and most convincingly by Friedrich Maehliss ("Die Unechtheit des Galaterbriefs," 1891). The same is the case with Phil. iii. 5. Acts xxii. 17-18 speaks of another vision which Paul had while in the Temple, in which Jesus told him to depart from Jerusalem and go with his gospel to the Gentiles. Evidently Paul entertained long before his vision those notions of the Son of God which he afterward expressed; but the identification of his Gnostic Christ with the crucified Jesus of the church he had formerly antagonized was possibly the result of a mental paroxysm experienced in the form of visions.

Barnabas and Other Hellenists.

Whether the Hellenists in Jerusalem, at the head of whom stood Stephen, Philip, and others named in Acts vii. 1-5, exerted an influence upon Paul, can not be ascertained: that Barnabas, who was a native of Cyprus, did, may be assumed with certainty. He was Paul's older companion, apparently of a more imposing stature (Acts xiv. 12); and, according to ib. ix. 27, he introduced Paul to the apostles and induced him (xi. 25) to cooperate with him in the church of Antioch. The two traveled together as collectors of charity for the poor of the Jerusalem church (ib. xi. 30, xv. 2; see Apostle), and as preachers of the gospel (ib. xiii. 3, 7, 13, 14, 43, 46, 50; xiv. 14, 20; xv. 2, 12, 22, 35), Paul soon becoming the more powerful preacher. Finally, on account of dissensions, probably of a far more serious nature than stated either in Acts xv. 36-39 or Gal. ii. 13, they separated. That both Paul and Barnabas held views different from those of the other apostles may be learned from I Cor. ix. 6. Paul's relation to Apollos also was apparently that of a younger colaborer to an older and more learned one (I Cor. i. 10, iii. 5-23, xvi. 12).


His Missionary Travels.

According to Acts xiii., xiv., xvii-xviii. (see Jew. Encyc. ix. 252-254, s.v. New Testament), Paul began working along the traditional Jewish line of proselytizing in the various synagogues where the proselytes of the gate and the Jews met; and only because he failed to win the Jews to his views, encountering strong opposition and persecution from them, did he turn to the Gentile world after he had agreed at a convention with the apostles at Jerusalem to admit the Gentiles into the Church only as proselytes of the gate, that is, after their acceptance of the Noachian laws (Acts xv. 1-31). This presentation of Paul's work is, however, incompatible with the attitude toward the Jews and the Law taken by him in the Epistles. Nor can any historical value be attached to the statement in Gal. ii. 1-10 that, by an agreement with the seeming pillars of the Church, the work was divided between Peter and Paul, the "gospel of circumcision" being committed to the one, and the "gospel of uncircumcision" to the other; as the bitter and often ferocious attacks against both the Jews and the apostles of the Judæo-Christian Church (in Phil. iii. 2 he calls them "dogs") would then have been uncalled for and unpardonable. In reality Paul had little more than the name of apostle in common with the actual disciples of Jesus. His field of work was chiefly, if not exclusively, among the Gentiles; he looked for a virgin soil wherein to sow the seeds of the gospel; and he succeeded in establishing throughout Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor churches in which there were "neither Jews nor Gentiles," but Christians who addressed each other as "brethren" or "saints." Regarding his great missionary journeys as described in the Acts after older documents, see Jew. Encyc. l.c. pp. 252-254. As to the chronology, much reliance can not be placed either on Gal. i. 17-ii. 3 or on the Acts with its contradictory statements.

From II Cor. xi. 24-32 (comp. ib. vi. 4; I Cor. iv. 11) it may be learned that his missionary work was beset with uncommon hardships. He labored hard day and night as a tent-maker for a livelihood (Acts xviii. 3; I Thess ii. 9; II Thess, iii. 8; I Cor. iv. 12, ix. 6-18). He says (II Cor. ix.) that more frequently than any other apostle he was imprisoned, punished with stripes, and in peril of death on land and sea; five times he received the thirtynine stripes in the synagogue, obviously for some public transgression of the Law (Deut. xxv. 3); three times was he beaten with rods, probably by the city magistrates (comp. Acts xvi. 22); once he was stoned by the people; and thrice he suffered shipwreck, being in the water a night and a day. In Damascus he was imprisoned by King Aretas at the instigation, not of the Jews, as is stated by modern historians, but of the Jerusalem authorities; and he escaped through being let down in a basket from a window (II Cor. xi. 24-32; comp. Acts xxvii. 41). He was besides this constantly troubled with his disease, which often made him "groan" for deliverance (I Thess. ii. 2, 19-iii. 1; II Cor. i. 8-10, iv. 7-v. 5, xii. 7; Gal. iv. 14).

In Greece.

Corinth and Ephesus, the two great centers of commerce, with their strangely mixed and turbulent as well as immoral population, offered to Paul a large field for his missionary work; and, because the Jews there were few and had little influence, he had free scope and ample opportunity to build up a church according to his plans. He was greatly aided therein by the Roman protection which he enjoyed (Acts xviii. 12-17, xix. 35-40). Yet as long as the church at Jerusalem was in his way he found little comfort and satisfaction in his achievements, though he proudly recounted the successes which marked his journeys throughout the lands. It was to Rome that his efforts gravitated. Not Athens, whose wisdom he decried as "folly" (I Cor. i. 17-24), but Rome's imperial city, whose administrative system he had learned to admire, attracted and fascinated his mind by its world-wide horizon and power. Consciously or unconsciously, he worked for a church with its world-center in Rome instead of in Jerusalem. A prisoner in the years 61-63 (Phil. i. 7, 16), and probably also a martyr at Rome, he laid the foundation of the world-dominion of pagan Christianity. (For futher biographical details, which form the subject of much dispute among Christians, but are of no special interest for Jewish readers, see the article "Paul" in Hauck,"Real-Encyc.," in Hastings, "Dict. Bible," and similar works.)

Paul's Church versus the Synagogue.

In order to understand fully the organization and scope of the Church as mapped out by Paul in his Epistles, a comparison thereof with the organization and the work of the Synagogue, including the Essene community, seems quite proper. Each Jewish community when organized as a congregation possessed in, or together with, its synagogue an institution (1) for common worship, (2) for the instruction of young and old in the Torah, and (3) for systematic charity and benevolence. This threefold work was as a rule placed in charge of men of high social standing, prominent both in learning and in piety. The degree of knowledge and of scrupulousness in the observance of the Torah determined the rank of the members of the Synagogue. Among the members of the Essene brotherhood every-day life with its common meals came under special rules of sanctity, as did their prayers and their charities as well as their visits to the sick, the Holy Spirit being especially invoked by them as a divine factor, preparing them also for the Messianic kingdom of which they lived in expectation (see Essenes). The Christian Church, in adopting the name and form of the Essene Church (Εκκλησία; see Congregation), lent to both the bath (see Baptism) and the communion meals (see Agape) a new character.

Influence of the Greek Mysteries.

Paul, the Hellenist, however, knowingly or unknowingly, seems to have taken the heathen cult associations as his pattern while introducing new features into the Church (see Anrich, "Das Antike Mysterienwesen in Seinem Einfluss auf das Christenthum," 1894; Wobbermin, "Religionsgeschichtliche Studien zur Frage der Beeinflussung des Urchristenthums Durch das Antike Mysterienwesen," 1896, p. 153; Hatch, "Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church," 1890, pp. 281-296; Cumont, "Die Mysterien des Mithra, Deutsch von Gehrich," 1903, pp. 101, 118-119; Anz, "Ursprung des Gnosticismus," 1897, pp. 98-107; Reizenstein and Kabisch, l.c.). To him baptism is no longer a symbolic rite suggestive of purification or regeneration, as in Jewish and Judæo-Christian circles (see Baptism), but a mystic rite by which the person that enters the water and emerges again undergoes an actual transformation, dying with Christ to the world of flesh and sin, and rising with him to the world of the spirit, the new life of the resurrection (Rom. vi. 1-10).

Still more is the partaking of the bread and the wine of the communion meal, the so-called "Lord's Supper," rendered the means of a mystic union with Christ, "a participation in his blood and body," exactly as was the Mithraic meal a real participation in the blood and body of Mithra (see Cumont, l.c.). To Paul, the Holy Spirit itself is not an ethical but a magic power that works sanctification and salvation. It is a mystic substance permeating the Church as a dynamic force, rendering all the members saints, and pouring forth its graces in the various gifts, such as those of prophesying, speaking in tongues, and interpreting voices, and others displayed in teaching and in the administration of charity and similar Church functions (Rom. xii. 4-8; I Cor. xii., xiv.; see Kabisch, l.c. pp. 261-281). The Church forms "the body of Christ" not in a figurative sense, but through the same mystic actuality as that by which the participants of heathen cults become, through their mysteries or sacraments, parts of their deities. Such is the expressed view of Paul when he contrasts the "table of Christ" with the "table of the demons" (I Cor. x. 20-21). While Paul borrows from the Jewish propaganda literature, especially the Sibyllines, the idea of the divine wrath striking especially those that commit the capital sins of idolatry and incest (fornication) and acts of violence or fraudulence (Rom. i. 18-32; I Thess. iv. 5), and while he accordingly wishes the heathen to turn from their idols to God, with desire of being saved by His son (I Thess. i. 9-10), his Church has by no means the moral perfection of the human race for its aim and end, as has Judaism.

Salvation alone, that is, redemption from a world of perdition and sin, the attainment of a life of incorruption, is the object; yet this is the privilege only of those chosen and predestined "to be conformed to the image of His [God's] son" (Rom. viii. 28-30). It is accordingly not personal merit nor the greater moral effort that secures salvation, but some arbitrary act of divine grace which justifies one class of men and condemns the other (ib. ix.). It is not righteousness, nor even faith-in the Jewish sense of perfect trust in the all-loving and all-forgiving God and Father-which leads to salvation, but faith in the atoning power of Christ's death, which in some mystic or judicial manner justifies the undeserving (Rom. iii. 22, iv., v.; comp. Faith; for the mystic conception of faith, πίστις, in Hellenism alongside of gnosis, see Reizenstein, l.c. pp. 158-159).

The Mystery of the Cross.

Heathen as is the conception of a church securing a mystic union with the Deity by means of sacramental rites, equally pagan is Paul's conception of the crucifixion of Jesus. While he accepts the Judæo-Christian view of the atoning power of the death of Jesus as the suffering Messiah (Rom. iii. 25, viii. 3), the crucifixion of Jesus as the son of God assumes for him at the very beginning the character of a mystery revealed to him, "a stumbling-block to the Jews and folly to the Greeks" (I Cor. i. 23-ii. 2, ii. 7-10). It is to him a cosmic act by which God becomes reconciled to Himself. God sent "his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh" in order to have His wrath appeased by his death. "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up," so that by his blood all men might be saved (Rom. v. 8; viii. 3, 32). To a Jewish mind trained by rabbinical acumen this is not pure monotheistic, but mythological, thinking. Paul's "Son of God" is, far more than the Logos of Philo, an infringement of the absolute unity of God. While the predicate "God" applied to him in Titus ii. 13 may be put to the account of Paul's school rather than to his own, throughout all the Epistles a share in the divinity is ascribed to Jesus in such a manner as to detract from the glory of God. He is, or is expected to be, called upon as"the Lord" (I Cor. i. 2; Rom. x. 13; Phil. ii. 10-11). Only the pagan idea of the "man-God" or "the second God," the world's artificer, and "son of God" (in Plato, in the Hermes-Tot literature as shown by Reizenstein, l.c.), or the idea of a king of light descending to Hades, as in the Mandæan-Babylonian literature (Brandt, "Die Mandäische Religion," 1889, pp. 151-156), could have suggested to Paul the conception of a God who surrenders the riches of divinity and descends to the poverty of earthly life in order to become a savior of the human race (I Cor. xv. 28, with ref. to Ps. viii. 6-7; Phil. ii. 6-10). Only from Alexandrian Gnosticism, or, as Reizenstein (l.c. pp. 25-26; comp. pp. 278, 285) convincingly shows, only from pagan pantheism, could he have derived the idea of the "pleroma," "the fulness" of the Godhead dwelling in Christ as the head of all principality and power, as him who is before all things and in whom all things consist (Col. i. 15-19, ii. 9).

Paul's Opposition to the Law.

Paul's attitude toward the Law was by no means hostile from the beginning or on principle, as the interpolated Epistle to the Romans and the spurious one to the Galatians represent it. Neither is it the legalistic (nomistic) character of Pharisaic Judaism which he militates against, as Jesus in the Gospels is represented as doing; nor was he prompted by the desire to discriminate between the ceremonial and the moral laws in order to accentuate the spiritual side of religion. Still less was he prompted by that allegorizing method of which Philo ("De Migratione Abrahami," § 16) speaks as having led many to the disregard of certain ceremonial laws, such as circumcision (M. Friedländer, "Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Christenthums," pp. 149, 163, Vienna, 1894). All such interpretations fail to account for Paul's denunciation of all law, moral as well as ceremonial, as an intrinsic evil (Hausrath, "Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte," 2d ed., iii. 14). According to his arguments (Rom. iii. 20, iv. 15, vii-viii.), it is the Law that begets sin and works wrath, because without the Law there is no transgression. "I had not known lust, except the Law had said, Thou shalt not covet" (ib. vii. 7). He has no faith in the moral power of man: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing" (ib. vii. 18). What he is aiming at is that state in which the sinfulness of the flesh is entirely overcome by the spirit of Christ who is "the end of the Law" (ib. x. 4), because he is the beginning of the resurrection. For Paul, to be a member of the Church meant to be above the Law, and to serve in the newness of the spirit under a higher law (ib. vii. 4-6, 25). For in Christ, that is, by the acceptance of the belief that with him the world of resurrection has begun, man has become "a new creature: the old things are passed away . . . all things have become new" (II Cor. v. 17). For Paul, the world is doomed: it is flesh beset by sin and altogether of the evil one; hence home, family life, worldly wisdom, all earthly enjoyment are of no account, as they belong to a world which passes away (I Cor. vii. 31). Having at first only the heathen in view, Paul claims the members of the Church for Christ; hence their bodies must be consecrated to him and not given to fornication (ib. vi. 15). In fact, they ought to live in celibacy; and only on account of Satan's temptation to lust are they allowed to marry (ib. vi. 18-vii. 8). As regards eating and drinking, especially of offerings to idols, which were prohibited to the proselyte of the gate by the early Christians as well as by the Jews (comp. Acts xv. 29), Paul takes the singular position that the Gnostics, those who possess the higher knowledge ("gnosis"; I Cor. viii. 1, xiii. 2, xiv. 6; II Cor. iv. 6; comp. Reizenstein, l.c. p. 158), are "the strong ones" who care not for clean and unclean things and similar ritualistic distinctions (Rom. xiv. 1-23; I Cor. viii. 1-13). Only those that are "weak in faith" do care; and their scruples should be heeded by the others. The Gnostic principle enunciated by Porphyrius ("De Abstinentia," i. 42), "Food that enters the body can as little defile free man as any impurity cast into the sea can contaminate the ocean, the deep fountain of purity" (comp. Matt. xv. 11), has in Paul's system an eschatological character: "The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. xiv. 17; comp. Ber. 17a; Jew. Encyc, v. 218, s.v. Eschatology). As he stated in I Cor. ix. 20-22: "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ), that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some."

The original attitude of Paul to the Law was accordingly not that of opposition as represented in Romans and especially in Galatians, but that of a claimed transcendency. He desired "the strong ones" to do without the Law as "schoolmaster" (Gal. iii. 24). The Law made men servants: Christ rendered them "sons of God." That is, their nature was transformed into an angelic, if not altogether divine, one (Rom. viii. 14-29; I Cor. vi. 1-3).

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[Ronin Truth]

Continued from above

Law for the Proselyte.

Only in admitting the heathen into his church did he follow the traditional Jewish practise of emphasizing at the initiation of proselytes "the law of God," consisting in "Love thy neighbor as thyself," taken from Lev. xix. 18 (Rom. xiii. 8-10 contains no allusion to Jesus' teaching). Also in the mode of preparing the proselyte-by specifying to him the mandatory and prohibitive commandments in the form of a catalogue of virtues or duties and a catalogue of sins, making him promise to practise the former, and, in the form of a "widdui" (confession of sins), to avoid the latter-Paul and his school followed, in common with all the other apostles, the traditional custom, as may be learned from I Thess. iv. 1-10; Col. iii. 5-14; Rom. i: 29 (comp. J. Rendel Harris, "The Teaching of the Apostles," 1887, pp. 82-84; Gal. v. 13-23, copied from Rom. l.c.; so also Eph. ii.-vi.; I Peter ii-iii.; I John iii.-iv.; Heb. xiii.; see Seeberg, "Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit," 1903, pp. 9-22, and Didache). A comparison of the "Didascalia"with Paul's various admonitions in the Epistles likewise shows how much he was indebted to Essene teachings (See Jew. Encyc. iv. 588-590, s.v. Didascalia, where it is shown in a number of instances that the priority rests with the Jewish "Didascalia" and not, as is generally believed, with Paul). Also "turning from darkness to light" (I Thess. v. 4-9; Rom. xiii. 12; Eph. v. 7-11; and elsewhere) is an expression borrowed from Jewish usage in regard to proselytes who "come over from the falsehood of idolatry to the truth of monotheism" (see Philo, "De Monarchia." i. 7; idem, "De Pœnitentia," §§ 1-2; comp. "Epistle of Barnabas," xix. 1-xx. 1). It is rather difficult to reconcile these moral injunctions with the Pauline notion that, since law begets sin, there should be no law ruling the members of the Church. It appears, however, that Paul used frequently the Gnostic term τέλειος= "perfect," "mature" (I Thess. v. 4, 10; Phil. iii. 12, 15; I Cor. ii. 6, xiii. 12 et seq., xiv. 20; Eph. iv. 13; Col. i. 28). This term, taken from Grecian mysteries (see Light-foot, "Epistles to the Colossians," ad loc.), and used also in Wisdom iv. 13, ix. 6, suggested an asceticism which in some circles of saints led to the unsexing of man for the sake of fleeing from lust (Wisdom iii. 13-14; Philo, "De Eo Quod Deterius Potiori Insidiatur," § 48; Matt. xix. 12; see Conybeare, l.c. p. 24). For Paul, then, the Christian's aim was to be mature and ready for the day when all would be "caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air" and be with Him forever (I Thess. iv. 16-17). To be with Christ, "in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead," is to become so "complete" as to be above the rule of heavenly bodies, above the "tradition of men," above statutes regarding circumcision, meat and drink, holy days, new moon, and Sabbath, all of which are but "a shadow of the things to come"; it is to be dead to the world and all things of the earth, to mortify the members of the flesh, to "put off the old man" with his deeds and passions, and put on the new man who is ever renewed for the highest knowledge of God (gnosis), so that there is "neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all" (Col. ii. 9-iii. 11; comp. I Cor. v. 7: "Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump").

Conflict with Judaism and the Law.

Far then from making antagonism to the Law the starting-point of his apostolic activity, as under the influence of the Epistle to the Romans is assumed by almost all Christian theologians, except the so-called Dutch school of critics (see Cheyne and Black, "Encyc. Bibl." s.v. "Paul and Romans, Epistle to the"), there is intrinsic evidence that Paul's hostile attitude to both the Law and the Jews was the result of his conflicts with the latter and with the other apostles. There is no bitter hostility or antagonism to the Law noticeable in I Thessalonians (ii. 14b-16 is a late interpolation referring to the destruction of the Temple), Colossians, I Corinthians (xv. 56 is obviously interpolated), or II Corinthians (where iii. 6-iv. 4, on closer analysis, also proves to be a late addition disturbing the context); and so little opposition to the Law does Paul show in those epistles first addressed to the Gentiles, that in I Cor. xiv. 21 he quotes as the "law"-that is, Torah in the sense of Revelation-a passage from Isa. xxviii. 11; whereas he avoids the term "law" (νόμος) elsewhere, declaring all statutes to be worthless human teaching (Col. ii. 22).

Antinomianism and Jew-Hatred.

His antinomian theology is chiefly set forth in the Epistle to the Romans, many parts of which, however, are the product of the second-century Church with its fierce hatred of the Jew, e.g., such passages as ii. 21-24, charging the Jews with theft, adultery, sacrilege, and blasphemy, or ix. 22 and xi. 28 (comp. iii. 2). The underlying motive of Paul-the tearing down of the partition-wall between Jew and Gentile-is best expressed in Eph. ii. 14-22, where it is declared that the latter are no longer "gerim" and "toshabim" (A. V. "strangers" and "foreigners"), but "fellow citizens with the saints" of the Church and fully equal members "of the household of God." In order to accomplish his purpose, he argues that just as little as the heathen escapes the wrath of God, owing to the horrible sins he is urged to commit by his clinging to his idols, so little can the Jew escape by his Law, because "the law worketh sin and wrath" (Rom. iv. 15). Instead, indeed, of removing the germ of death brought into the world by Adam, the Law was given only to increase sin and to make all the greater the need of divine mercy which was to come through Christ, the new Adam (ib. v. 15-20). By further twisting the Biblical words taken from Gen. xv. 6, which he interprets as signifying that Abraham's faith became a saving power to him, and from Gen. xvii. 5, which he takes as signifying that Abraham was to be the father of the Gentiles instead of nations, he argues that the saving grace of God lies in faith (that is, blind belief) and not in the works of the Law. And so he declares faith in Jesus' atoning death to be the means of justification and salvation, and not the Law, which demands servitude, whereas the spirit of Christ makes men children of God (Rom. iv.-viii.). The Pauline Jew-hatred was ever more intensified (see ib. ix.-xi., and comp. ix. 31)-which is clear evidence of a later origin-and culminates in Gal. iii., where, besides the repetition of the argument from Gen. xv. 6 and xvii. 5, the Law is declared, with reference to Deut. xxviii. 26 and Hab. ii. 4 (comp. Rom. i. 17), to be a curse from which the crucified Christ-himself "a curse" according to the Law (Deut. xxi. 23; probably an argument taken up from controversies with the Jews)-was to redeem the believer. Another sophistic argument against the Law, furnished in Gal. iii. 19-24, and often repeated in the second century (Heb. ii. 2; Acts vii. 38, 53; Aristides, "Apologia," xiv. 4), is that the Law was received by Moses as mediator from the angels-a quaint notion based upon Deut. xxxiii. 2, LXX.; comp. Josephus, "Ant." xv. 5, § 3-and that it is not the law of God, which is a life-giving law of righteousness. Furthermore the laws of the Jews and the idolatrous practises of the heathen are placed equally low as mere servitude of" the weak and beggarly elements" (="planets"; Gal. iv. 8-11), whereas those that have put on Christ by baptism have risen above alldistinctions of race, of class, and of sex, and have become children of God and heirs of Abraham (ib. iii. 26-29; what is meant by the words" There shall be neither male nor female" in verse 28 may be learned from Gal. v. 12, where eunuchism is advised; see B. Weiss's note ad loc.).

The Old Testament and the New.

The Pauline school writing under Paul's name, but scarcely Paul himself, worked out the theory, based upon Jer. xxxi. 30-31, that the Church of Christ represents the new covenant (see Covenant; New Testament) in place of the old (Rom. xi. 27; Gal. iv. 24; Heb. viii. 6-13, ix. 15-x. 17; and, following these passages, I Cor. xi. 23-28). Similarly the interpolator of II Cor. iii. 6-iv. 4, in connection with ib. iii. 3, contrasts the Old Testament with the New: the former by the letter of the Law offering but damnation and death because "the veil of Moses" is upon it, preventing God's glory from being seen; the latter being the life-giving spirit offering righteousness, that is, justification, and the light of the knowledge (gnosis) of the glory of God as reflected in the face of Jesus Christ. It is superfluous to state that this Gnostic conception of the spirit has nothing to do with the sound religious principle often quoted from I Cor. iii. 6: "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The privilege of seeing God's glory as Moses did face to face through a bright mirror held out in I Cor. xiii. 12 (comp. Suk. 45b; Lev. R. i. 14) to the saints in the future is claimed in II Cor. iii. 18 and iv. 4 as a power in the actual possession of the Christian believer. The highest hope of man is regarded as realized by the writer, who looks forward to the heavenly habitation as a release from the earthly tabernacle (II Cor. v. 1-8).

Spurious Writings Ascribed to Paul.

This unhealthy view of life maintained by Paul and his immediate followers was, however, changed by the Church the moment her organization extended over the world. Some epistles were written in the name of Paul with the view of establishing more friendly relations to society and government than Paul and the early Christians had maintained. While Paul warns his church-members not to bring matters of dispute before "the unjust," by which term he means the Gentiles (I Cor. vi. 1; comp. Jew. Encyc. iv. 590), these very heathen powers of Rome are elsewhere praised as the ministers of God and His avengers of wrong (Rom. xiii. 1-7); and while in I Cor. xi. 5 women are permitted to prophesy and to pray aloud in the church provided they have their heads covered, a later chapter, obviously interpolated, states, "Let your women keep silence in the churches" (ib. xiv. 34). So celibacy (ib. vii. 1-8) is declared to be the preferable state, and marriage is allowed only for the sake of preventing fornication (Eph. v. 21-33), while, on the other hand, elsewhere marriage is enjoined and declared to be a mystery or sacrament symbolizing the relation of the Church as the bride to Christ as the bridegroom (see Bride).

A still greater change in the attitude toward the Law may be noticed in the so-called pastoral epistles. Here the Law is declared to be good as a preventive of wrong-doing (I Tim. i. 8-10), marriage is enjoined, and woman's salvation is declared to consist only in the performance of her maternal duty (ib. ii. 12, 15), while asceticism and celibacy are condemned (ib. iv. 3). So all social relations are regulated in a worldly spirit, and are no longer treated, as in Paul's genuine epistles, in the spirit of otherworldliness (ib. ii.-vi.; II Tim. ii. 4-6; Titus. ii.-iii.; comp. Didascalia). Whether in collecting alms for the poor of the church on Sundays (I Cor. xvi. 2) Paul instituted a custom or simply followed one of the early Christians is not clear; from the "We" source in Acts xx. 7 it appears, however, that the church-members used to assemble for their communion meal in memory of the risen Christ, the Lord's Supper, on the first day of the week-probably because they held the light created on that day to symbolize the light of the Savior that had risen for them (see the literature in Schürer," Die Siebentägige Woche," in "Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft," 1905, pp. 1-2). Little value can be attached to the story in Acts xviii. 18 that Paul brought a Nazarite sacrifice in the Temple, since for him the blood of Christ was the only sacrifice to be recognized.

Only at a later time, when Pauline and Judean Christianity were merged, was account again taken, contrary to the Pauline system, of the Mosaic law regarding sacrifice and the priesthood; and so the Epistle to the Hebrews was written with the view of representing Jesus as "the high priest after the order of Melchizedek" who atoned for the sins of the world by his own blood (Heb. iv. 14-v. 10, vii.-xiii.). However, the name of Paul, connected with the epistle by Church tradition, was not attached to it in writing, as was the case with the other epistles.

Paul and Paulinism.

How far, after a careful analysis discriminating between what is genuine in Paul's writings and what is spurious and interpolated, he may yet be regarded as "the great religious genius" or the "great organizer" of the Christian Church, can not be a matter for discussion here. Still the credit belongs to him of having brought the teachings of the monotheistic truth and the ethics of Judaism, however mixed up with heathen Gnosticism and asceticism, home to the pagan world in a form which appealed most forcibly to an age eager for a God in human shape and for some means of atonement in the midst of a general consciousness of sin and moral corruption. Different from Simon Magus, his contemporary, with whom he was at times maliciously identified by his opponents, and in whose Gnostic system sensuousness and profanity predominated, Paul with his austerity made Jewish holiness his watch word; and he aimed after all, like any other Jew, at the establishment of the kingdom of God, to whom also his Christ subordinated himself, delivering up the kingdom to the Father when his task of redemption was complete, in order that God might be all in all (I Cor. xv. 28). He was an instrument in the hand of Divine Providence to win the heathen nations for Israel's God of righteousness.

His System of Faith.

On the other hand, he construed a system of faithwhich was at the very outset most radically in conflict with the spirit of Judaism: (1) He substituted for the natural, childlike faith of man in God as the ever-present Helper in all trouble, such as the Old Testament represents it everywhere, a blind, artificial faith prescribed and imposed from without and which is accounted as a meritorious act. (2) He robbed human life of its healthy impulses, the human soul of its faith in its own regenerating powers, of its belief in its own self and in its inherent tendencies to goodness, by declaring Sin to be, from the days of Adam, the all-conquering power of evil ingrained in the flesh, working everlasting doom; the deadly exhalation of Satan, the prince of this world, from whose grasp only Jesus, the resurrected Christ, the prince of the other world, was able to save man. (3) In endeavoring to liberate man from the yoke of the Law, he was led to substitute for the views and hopes maintained by the apocalyptic writers the Christian dogma with its terrors of damnation and hell for the unbeliever, holding out no hope whatsoever for those who would not accept his Christ as savior, and finding the human race divided between the saved and the lost (Rom. ii. 12; I Cor. i. 18; II Cor. ii. 15, iv. 3; II Thess. ii. 10). (4) In declaring the Law to be the begetter of sin and damnation and in putting grace or faith in its place, he ignored the great truth that duty, the divine "command," alone renders life holy; that upon the law of right-cousness all ethics, individual or social, rest. (5) In condemning, furthermore, all human wisdom, reason, and common sense as "folly," and in appealing only to faith and vision, he opened wide the door to all kinds of mysticism and superstition. (6) Moreover, in place of the love greatly extolled in the panegyric in I Cor. xiii.-a chapter which strangely interrupts the connection between ch. xii. and xiv.-Paul instilled into the Church, by his words of condemnation of the Jews as "vessels of wrath fitted for destruction" (Rom. ix. 22; II Cor. iii. 9, iv. 3), the venom of hatred which rendered the earth unbearable for God's priest-people. Probably Paul is not responsible for these outbursts of fanaticism; but Paulinism is. It finally led to that systematic defamation and profanation of the Old Testament and its God by Marcion and his followers which ended in a Gnosticism so depraved and so shocking as to bring about a reaction in the Church in favor of the Old Testament against the Pauline antinomianism.


Protestantism revived Pauline views and notions; and with these a biased opinion of Judaism and its Law took possession of Christian writers, and prevails even to the present (comp., e.g., Weber, "Jüdische Theologie," 1897, where Judaism is presented throughout simply as "Nomismus"; Schürer's description of the life of the Jew "under the law" in his "Gesch." 3d ed., ii. 464-496; Bousset, "Religion des Judenthums in Neu-Testamentlichen Zeitalter," 1903, p. 107; and the more popular works by Harnack and others; and see also Schechter in "J. Q. R." iii. 754-766; Abrahams, "Prof. Schürer on Life Under the Jewish Law," ib. xi. 626; and Schreiner, "Die Jüngsten Urtheile über das Judenthum," 1902, pp. 26-34).

For other Pauline doctrines see Atonement; Body in Jewish Theology; Faith; Sin, Original.
Kaufmann Kohler
Jewish Encyclopedia, published between 1901-1906.

Bibliography:

Cheyne and Black, Encyc. Bibl. s.v. Paul, where the main literature is given; Eschelbacher, Das Judenthum und das Wesen des Christenthums, Berlin, 1905; Grätz, Gesch. 4th ed., iii. 413-425; Moritz Loewy, Die Paulinische Lehre vom Gesetz, in Monatsschrift, 1903-4; Claude Monteflore, Rabbinic Judaism and the Epistles of Paul, in J. Q. R. xiii. 161.

---

The individual articles presented here were generally first published in the early 1980s. This subject presentation was first placed on the Internet in May 1997.This page - - Paulinism - - is at http://www.mb-soft.com/believe/txc/paulinis.htm
This subject presentation was last updated on - - 09/28/2015 09:43:00

 

[Dr. Dog]

Do you only start copy-paste threads? Will you ever post your own original thoughts?

 

[RJB]

Do you only start copy-paste threads? Will you ever post your own original thoughts?

Uh oh. Here we go again

 

[Sola_Fide]

Do you only start copy-paste threads? Will you ever post your own original thoughts?

I'm not trying to be mean to the guy, but honestly, he doesn't really have any thoughts. He doesn't understand the Bible, Christianity, history, philosophy. He literally types "Paul vs. Jesus" into Google and posts everything he can from these cult websites.

The best thing that anyone can do is to click on the links that he posts, but go to the "beliefs" section of whatever website it is. When you do that, you really get to see what these nuts he links to believe.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Do you only start copy-paste threads? Will you ever post your own original thoughts?

When mine are better and more interesting than what I can find.

Starting copy and paste threads IS my original thought. It helps out some, to counter and oppose most infantile time wasting, OFF TOPIC arguments.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Jesuism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the philosophy encompassing the teachings of Jesus. For the Catholic religious order known as the Jesuits, see Society of Jesus.

Jesuism, also called Jesusism or Jesuanism, is the philosophy or teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and the adherence to them.[1]

Jesuism considers Jesus as the supreme authority of Christianity. Within Jesuism, one seeks to restore Jesus' sayings to their original purity. This includes eradicating human interpolations of the Gospels and misconceptions revealed by recent archaeological research.[citation needed]

Jesuism is distinct from and sometimes opposed to mainstream directions.[2] In particular, the term is often contrasted with the theology attributed to Paul of Tarsus and mainstream church dogma.[3][4] Whilst not being opposed to the Christian Bible or Church doctrine, Jesuism does not affirm their authority over the teachings of Jesus. As a philosophy, Owen Flanagan characterized Jesuism as naturalistic and rationalist, rejecting the conflict between faith and science.[5]
Though not specifically associated with Jesuism, the red letter Bibles are one method of studying the teachings of Jesus.
Another is the Jefferson Bible. Many New Testament scholars have tried to identify Jesus' authentic sayings and actions; Géza Vermes, in particular, in his The Authentic Gospel of Jesus identifies what elements of the synoptic gospels are attributable to Jesus.[6]

Contents
1 Etymology
2 History of usage
3 Beliefs, practices, and adherents
4 Jesuism versus Paulinism
5 See also
6 References

Etymology

The term "Jesuism" was coined by the late 1800s. It is derived from "Jesus" (Jesus of Nazareth) + "-ism" (English suffix, a characteristic or system of beliefs, from French -isme, Latin -ismus, Greek -ismos).[7][8]

History of usage

Carl Heinrich Bloch's rendition of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which is central to the philosophy of Jesusism.
As a concept distinct from Christianity, the terms Jesuism, Jesusism and Jesuanism have been referenced by philosophers, theologians, and writers for over a century. In 1878, freethinker and former Shaker D. M. Bennett wrote that "Jesuism", as distinct from "Paulism", was the gospel taught by Peter, John and James, and the Messianic doctrine of a new Jewish sect.[9] In 1894, American pathologist and atheist Frank Seaver Billings defined "Jesusism" as the "Christianity of the Gospels" and a philosophy which "can be attributed directly to the teachings of Jesus the Nazarene".[10][11] In 1909, the Seventh-day Adventist newspaper Signs of the Times, in an issue titled "Modern Christianity Not Jesusism", the question is posed: "Christianity of today is not the old original Christianity. It is not Jesusism, for it is not the religion which Jesus preached. Is it not time to make Christianity the religion which He personally preached and which He personally practiced?"[12] Harvard theologian Bouck White, in 1911, also defined "Jesusism" as "the religion which Jesus preached".[1] Lord Ernest Hamilton in 1912 wrote that "Jesuism" was simply to love one another and love God.[13] The philosophy of Jesusism was described in the book The Naked Truth of Jesusism from Oriental Manuscripts, penned by theologian Lyman Fairbanks George in 1914, as follows:

It is to restore Jesus' sayings to their original purity.
It is to eradicate from the Gospels the interpolations of the Middle Ages.
It is to relate the misconceptions revealed by recent archaeological research.
It is to present Jesus from an economic viewpoint.
It is to break through the spell spectral of Cosmic Credulity.
It is to toll the knell of schism through Jesusism.[14]

The Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov further noted in 1935 that "the concentration of piety on the Christ alone has become a deviation already known by a special term as Jesusism".[15] Influential Catholic theologian Karl Rahner referred to "Jesusism" as a focus on the life of Jesus and attempts to imitate his life, as opposed to a focus on God or the Christian Church.[16] University of Melbourne professor Lindsay Falvey noted in 2009 that "the gospel story so differs from Church doctrine that it could well be of a different religion – Jesusism".[17] Jesusism became the subject of increased academic discussion following its reference by Duke University neurobiologist and philosopher Owen Flanagan in his 2007 book The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World.[18] Flanagan defines Jesusism as the "message" of Jesus and notes that he "call it ‘Jesusism’ because most Christian Churches do not endorse Jesus’ message truthfully".[2] Rodney Stenning Edgecombe, a professor at the University of Cape Town, in a 2009 essay titled Communication Across the Social Divide remarks how Christianity shifted away from Jesuism; the moral tenets Jesus preached.[19] The terms Jesuism, Jesusism and Jesuanism are also referenced popularly on religious blogs and internet groups.

Beliefs, practices, and adherents

There is no definitive meaning of Jesuism, Jesusism or Jesuanism, and hence no clear ideology. However, Frank Seaver Billings described "Jesusism" as a combination of anarchism and communism (see anarchist communism and Christian anarchism).[8][20][21] Billings, an American atheist and materialist, was critical of all religion, including Jesuism.[10][22]
Various groups use the terms Jesuism, Jesusism and Jesuanism. These include disenchanted Christians who are critical of institutional religion or Pauline Christianity, people who identify themselves as disciples of Jesus rather than Christians, Christian atheists who accept Jesus' teachings but do not believe in God, and atheists who are critical of all religion including Jesuism. Adherents may be termed Jesuists, Jesusists or Jesuans.[23] Due to its fundamental disposition towards theological revelation, some publishers have drawn comparisons between Jesuists and Muwahhid Muslims.[24]

Jesuism versus Paulinism

Jesuism does not affirm the spiritual or scriptural authority of the Christian Bible (with the exception of the Gospels). Jesuism is particularly contrasted with Pauline Christianity or Paulinism, the theology of Paul of Tarsus.[25][26]
Ludwig Wittgenstein described the following differences between Paulinism and Jesuism:

The spring which flows quietly and transparently through the Gospels seems to have foam on it in Paul’s Epistles. Or, that is how it seems to me. Perhaps it is just my own impurity which sees cloudiness in it; for why shouldn’t this impurity be able to pollute what is clear? But to me it’s as if I saw human passion here, something like pride or anger, which does not agree with the humility of the Gospels. As if there were here an emphasis on his own person, and even as a religious act, which is foreign to the Gospel.

In the Gospels – so it seems to me – everything is less pretentious, humbler, simpler. There are huts; with Paul a church. There all men are equal and God himself is a man; with Paul there is already something like a hierarchy; honours and offices.[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesuism

 

[Dr. Dog]

When mine are better and more interesting than what I can find.

Starting copy and paste threads IS my original thought. It helps out some, to counter and oppose most infantile time wasting, OFF TOPIC arguments.

Isn't the point of a discussion for to have a discussion? All I see from you is copy-pastes with no original thoughts to foster a discussion. Whenever you're challenged on what you have posted you refuse to give your opinion on the matter. It's counterproductive to what this forum is supposed to be.

 

[RJB]

Isn't the point of a discussion for to have a discussion? All I see from you is copy-pastes with no original thoughts to foster a discussion. Whenever you're challenged on what you have posted you refuse to give your opinion on the matter. It's counterproductive to what this forum is supposed to be.

That's because Ronin is a closet Paulinist.

 

[erowe1]

Will you ever post your own original thoughts?

Ha hahahahhaha!

Ahhh hahahahah!


*breath*

Hahahahahahahah!!!

 

[Ronin Truth]

Isn't the point of a discussion for to have a discussion? All I see from you is copy-pastes with no original thoughts to foster a discussion. Whenever you're challenged on what you have posted you refuse to give your opinion on the matter. It's counterproductive to what this forum is supposed to be.

When I have no opinion in particular, what opinion should I give, according to you? I am not the thread topic.

Please enlighten me, what is this forum supposed to be, and according to whom?

 

[Ronin Truth]

Ha hahahahhaha!

Ahhh hahahahah!


*breath*

Hahahahahahahah!!!

Thank you for your totally worthless OFF TOPIC thread bump post.

 

[Ronin Truth]

Isn't the point of a discussion for to have a discussion? All I see from you is copy-pastes with no original thoughts to foster a discussion. Whenever you're challenged on what you have posted you refuse to give your opinion on the matter. It's counterproductive to what this forum is supposed to be.

So have a discussion. Who is stopping you? I'm sure you can find some discussion volunteers, somewhere. <shrug>

 

[Paulbot99]

So have a discussion. Who is stopping you? I'm sure you can find some discussion volunteers, somewhere. <shrug>

But no one here is making the claims you are making. Do you honestly want a "Paulinista" to take up your argument?

 

[Ronin Truth]

But no one here is making the claims you are making. Do you honestly want a "Paulinista" to take up your argument?

What claims are those? They usually just divert, distract, and derail the threads anyway, so what's really the point?

"By their fruits, ye shall know them." ​

 

[Ronin Truth]

Tolstoy on Paulinism

Overview

In My Religion (1884), Tolstoy explains Christianity went off the rails initially with Paul who knew nothing of Jesus's ethical teachings:

"The separation between the doctrine of life and the explanation of life began with the preaching of Paul who knew not the ethical teachings set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, and who preached a metaphisico-cabalistic theory entirely foreign to Christ; and this separation was perfected in the time of Constantine, when it was found possible to clothe the whole pagan organization of life in a Christian dress, and without changing it to call it Christianity." (Leo Tolstoy, My Religion (1884) at 219.)

Later Tolstoy will explain what happened by an analogy to an original pilot who had rules replaced by a new pilot who has no rules but only dogma to accept:

"Imagine a number of men rowing a boat, a pilot steering. The men rely upon the pilot, and the pilot steers well; but after a time the good pilot is replaced by another, who does not steer at all. The boat moves along rapidly and easily. At first the men do not notice the negligence of the new pilot; they are only pleased to find that the boat goes along so easily. Then they discover that the new pilot is utterly useless, and they mock at him, and drive him from his place." Id., at 225.

Tolstoy perceives the church led by the new pilot (i.e., Paul) is now recognized as useless to give meaning to life.

Regardless, men who do know about Jesus and even hate his name are still drawn to Jesus' principles that they have unconsciously absorbed. In this time when people might be prepared to call back the first pilot (Jesus), the church is afraid to call upon Him to return to restore the right principles of living. Instead, the majority of society and the church as a whole are clinging onto the belief that the only rules for life come from government. In the modern world, most think it is not important to return to Jesus and His principles. Instead, most believe the state must be obeyed as ministers of God (as Paul taught in Romans 13:1). As a result, life has now become devoid of meaning to the great masses:

"The distinctive trait of civilized man is to obey what the majority of men regard as iniquitous, contrary to conscience. I seek in vain in civilized society as it exists to-day for any clearly formulated moral bases of life. There are none. No perception of their necessity exists. On the contrary, we find the extraordinary conviction that they are superfluous; that religion is nothing more than a few words about God and a future life, and a few ceremonies very useful for the salvation of the soul according to some, and good for nothing according to others; but that life happens of itself and has no need of any fundamental rule, and that we have only to do what we are told to do." Id., at 233.

Tolstoy says the solution is now to go back to the original pilot - Jesus. We need to restore the church to Jesus-Words-Only (to use my phrase), and leave the old dogma-laden church to its dissolution:

"The truth of the doctrine of Jesus, once unconsciously absorbed by humanity through the organism of the Church, must now beconsciously recognized; for in the truth of this doctrine humanity has always obtained its vital force. Men must lift up the torch of truth, which hasso long remained concealed, and carry it before them, guiding their actions by its light.

"The doctrine of Jesus, as a religion that governs the actions of men and explains to them the meaning of life, is now before the world just as it was eighteen hundred years ago. Formerly the world had the explanations of the Church which, in concealing the doctrine, seemed in itself to offer a satisfactory interpretation of life ; but now the time is come when the Church has lost its usefulness, and the world, having no other means for sustaining its true existence, can only feel its helplessness and go for aid directly to the doctrine of Jesus." Id., at 238.

Tolstoy concludes with an exaltation of Jesus' doctrine as shining forth still boldy if anyone would but read it:

"The doctrine of Jesus is the light. The light shines forth, and the darkness cannot conceal it. Men cannot deny it, men cannot refuse to accept its guidance. They must depend on the doctrine of Jesus, which penetrates among all the errors with which the life of men is surrounded. Like the insensible ether filling universal space, enveloping all created things, so the doctrine of Jesus is inevitable for every man in whatever situation he may be found. Men cannot refuse to recognize the doctrine of Jesus; they may deny the metaphysical explanation of life which it gives (we may deny everything), but the doctrine of Jesus alone offers rules for the conduct of life without which humanity has never lived, and never will be able to live; without which no human being has lived or can live, if he would live as man should live, — a reasonable life.

The power of the doctrine of Jesus is not in its explanation of the meaning of life, but in the rules that it gives for the conduct of life." Id., at 239.

Tolstoy concludes the chapter with this simple principle: "The faith that triumphs over the doctrines of the world is faith in the doctrine of Jesus." Id., at 244.

Step-by-Step Reading Of Tolstoy

Let's go back now and see Tolstoy's reasoning in the greater context. Leading into the first quote about Paul, Tolstoy writes, beginning on page 218:

"I became convinced that the doctrine of the Church, although bearing the name of 'Christian,' is one with the darkness against which Jesus struggled, and against which he commanded his disciples to strive....

"But, with regard to the doctrine of Jesus, as with regard to all other doctrines, men wander from its precepts, and they always find some one to justify their deviations. Those who, as Jesus said, sit in Moses' seat, explain the metaphysical theory in such a way that the ethical prescriptions of the doctrine cease to be regarded as obligatory, and are replaced by external forms of worship, by ceremonial. This is a condition common to all religions, but, to me, it seems that it never has been manifested with so much pomp as in connection with Christianity, — and for two reasons: first, because the doctrine of Jesus is the most elevated of all doctrines (the most elevated because the metaphysical and ethical portions are so closely united that one cannot be separated from the other without destroying the vitality of the whole) ; second, because the doctrine of Jesus is in itself a protest against all forms, a negation not only of Jewish ceremonial, but of all exterior rites of worship.

Therefore, the arbitrary separation of the metaphysical and ethical aspects of Christianity entirely disfigures the doctrine, and deprives it of every sort of meaning." Id., at 218.

Then appears the quote on Paul above where Pauline doctrine creates this separation which "deprives" Jesus's message of "every sort of meaning." Then the text continues on page 219:

"After Constantine, that arch-pagan, whom the Church in spite of all his crimes and vices admits to the category of the saints, after Constantine began the domination of the councils, and the centre of gravity of Christianity was permanently displaced till only the metaphysical portion was left in view. And this metaphysical theory with its accompanying ceremonial deviated more and more from its true and primitive meaning, until it has reached its present stage of development, as a doctrine which explains the mysteries of a celestial life beyond the comprehension of human reason, and, with all its complicated formulas, gives no religious guidance whatever with regard to the regulation of this earthly life." Id., at 219 -220.

One senses here that Tolstoy balks at the Council of Nicea, and the emphasis about the correct formula to depict Christ, taking the emphasis away from the ethical teachings of Jesus. Tolstoy next makes the point that a religion where belief is all that matters becomes a peculiar one where behavior no longer holds central importance. Tolstoy calls this Pseudo-Christianity:

"All religions, with the exception of the religion of the Christian Church, demand from their adherents aside from forms and ceremonies, the practice of certain actions called good, and abstinence from certain actions that are called bad. The Jewish religion prescribed circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, the giving of alms, the feast of the Passover.

Mohammedanism prescribes circumcision, prayer five times a day, the giving of tithes to the poor, pilgrimage to the tomb of the Prophet, and many other things. It is the same with all other religions. Whether these prescriptions are good or bad, they are prescriptions which exact the performance of certain actions. Pseudo-Christianity alone prescribes nothing. There is nothing that a Christian is obliged to observe except fasts and prayers, which the Church itself does not recognize as obligatory. All that is necessary to the pseudoChristian is the sacrament. But the sacrament is not fulfilled by the believer; it is administered to him by others. The pseudo-Christian is obliged to do nothing or to abstain from nothing for his own salvation, since the Church administers to him everything of which he has need. The Church baptizes him, anoints him, gives him the eucharist, confesses him, even after he has lost consciousness, administers extreme unction to him, and prays for him, — and he is saved. From the time of Constantine the Christian Church has prescribed no religious duties to its adherents. It has never required that they should abstain from anything. The Christian Church has recognized and sanctioned divorce, slavery, tribunals, all earthly powers, the death penalty, and war; it has exacted nothing except a renunciation of a purpose to do evil on the occasion of baptism, and this only in its early days : later on, when infant baptism was introduced, even this requirement was no longer observed." Id., at 220-21.

Tolstoy next comments that this has led to a Christianity without Christ:

"The Church confesses the doctrine of Jesus intheory, but denies it in practice. Instead of guiding the life of the world, the Church, through affection for the world, expounds the metaphysical doctrine of Jesus in such a way as not to derive from it any obligation as to the conduct of life, any necessity for men to live differently from the way in which they have been living. The Church has surrendered to the world, and simply follows in the train of its victor. The world does as it pleases, and leaves to the Church the task of justifying its actions with explanations as to the meaning of life. The world organizes an existence in absolute opposition to the doctrine of Jesus, and the Church endeavors to demonstrate that men who live contrary to the doctrine of Jesus really live in accordance with that doctrine. The final result is that the world lives a worse than pagan existence, and the Church not only approves, but maintains that this existence is in exact conformity to the doctrine of Jesus." Id., at 221.

Tolstoy then says the light from Jesus's words are still powerful, and sometimes break through the cloud used to keep them from us:

"But a time comes when the light of the true doctrine of Jesus shines forth from the Gospels, notwithstanding the guilty efforts of the Church to conceal it from men's eyes, as, for instance, in prohibiting the translation of the Bible ; there comes a time when the light reaches the people, even through the medium of sectarians and free-thinkers, and the falsity of the doctrine of the Church is shown so clearly that men begin to transform the method of living that the Church has justified." Id., at 222.

Tolstoy sees steps have been taken despite the church that approximate better Jesus's teachings, e.g., end of popery and divine rights of kings, charity of property, etc. But this movement of civil rights breaks down the authority of the church, transfering power to secular authorities. The church which abandoned Christ long ago is left with empty dogmas and buildings:

"And in this way the conduct of human life is freed from the control of the Church, and subjected to an entirely different authority. The Church retains its dogmas, but what are its dogmas worth ? A metaphysical explanation can be of use only when there is a doctrine of life which it serves to make manifest. But the Church possesses only the explanation of an organization which it once sanctioned, and which no longer exists. The Church has nothing left but temples and shrines and canonicals- and vestments and words." Id., at 222.

The church which abandoned Christ's teachings for dogma alone finds itself abandoned and powerless in the world. What the church professed that came from Christ but which the church abandoned lives on in the modern movements for progress.

However, the church has no influence over them because the church abandoned these equality-promoting messages long ago:

"All these churches — Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant — are like so many sentinels still keeping careful watch before the prison doors, although the prisoners have long been at liberty before their eyes, and even threaten their existence. All that actually constitutes life, that is, the activity of humanity towards progress and its own welfare, socialism, communism, the new politico-economical theories, utilitarianism, the liberty and equality of all social classes, and of men and women, all the moral principles of humanity, the sanctity of work, reason, science, art, — all these that lend an impulse to the world's progress in hostility to the Church are only fragments of the doctrine which the Church has professed, and so carefully endeavored to conceal. In these times, the life of the world is entirely independent of the doctrine of the Church. The Church is left so far behind, that men no longer hear the voices of those who preach its doctrines. This is easily to be understood because the Church still clings to an organization of the world's life, which has been forsaken, and is rapidly falling to destruction." Id., at 224-225.

Tolstoy then explains how the church became a shell following Paul's dictum to obey the government in all things. (Paul's Epistle to the Romans ch. 13). Tolstoy laments our faith is not entwined with ethics, but instead is all about dogmas / beliefs. Thus, rather than transforming the world with higher ethical principles to stop evil, the church now defends all things which promotes the ruler's interest:

"A century ago, and among the ignorant now, the nominal Christian makes this reply: " Compulsory military service, wars, tribunals, and the death penalty, all exist in obedience to the law of God transmitted to us by the Church. This is a fallen world. All the evil that exists, exists by God's will, as a punishment for the sins of men. For this reason we can do nothing to palliate evil. We can only save our own souls by faith, by the sacraments, by prayers, and by submission to the will of God as transmitted by the Church. The Church teaches us that all Christians should unhesitatingly obey their rulers, who are the Lord's anointed, and obey also persons placed in authority by rulers; that they ought to defend their property and that of others by force, wage war, inflict the death penalty, and in all things submit to the authorities, who command by the will of God." Id., at 227.

This leads into my favorite passage. Tolstoy says that when he asks Christians why they live at odds with what Jesus's teaches, the Christian responds by despairing of the skepticism of the age, as if anyone who wanted to restore Jesus's words to a priority were a traitor of Christianity:

"When we ask a Catholic, or Protestant, or Orthodox believer why he leads an existence contrary to the doctrine of Jesus, instead of making a correct response he begins to speak of the melancholy state of scepticism characteristic of this generation, of evil-minded persons who spread doubt broadcast among the masses, of the importance of the future of the existing Church.
But he will not tell you why he does not act in conformity to the commands of the religion that he professes. Instead of speaking of his own condition, he will talk to you about the condition of humanity in general, and of that of the Church, as if his own life were not of the slightest significance, and his sole preoccupations were the salvation of humanity, and of what he calls the Church." Id., at 228-229.

When dogma and opinion about Christ is all that is left to Christianity, and Jesus' ethical messages are ignored which give us life, there is no answer one can give to the meaning of life that suffices:

"This subterfuge is employed simply because the believer and the philosopher, and the average man have no positive doctrine concerning existence, and cannot, therefore, reply to the personal question, '' What of your own life ? " They are disgusted and humiliated at not possessing the slightest trace of a doctrine with regard to life, for no one can live in peace without some understanding of what life really means. But nowadays only Christians cling to a fantastic and worn-out creed as an explanation of why life is as it is, and is not otherwise. Only Christians give the name of religion to a system which is not of the least use to any one. Only among Christians is life separated from any or all doctrine, and left without any definition whatever." Id., at 230.

Where does that leave anyone? The state becomes the new religion. In other words, when Christians now say that Christianity is not about ethics but belief, and thereby empty Christianity of the religious quality that Jesus also taught besides belief, the masses have one choice left: to have as their religion the obedience to the state's morality. This is the last condition of Christianity without Christ (in reliance upon Paul's dictum to obey rulers):

"Now their faith is in what they are told to do. The faith of those who deny religion is in a religion of obedience to the will of the ruling majority; in a word, submission to established authority." Id., at 231.

And thus believers in Christianity and skeptics end up with the same religion:

"Ask the believers or sceptics of this age, what doctrine of life they follow. They will be obliged to confess that they follow but one doctrine, the doctrine based upon laws formulated by the judiciary or by legislative assemblies, and enforced by the police — the favorite doctrine of most Europeans." Id., at 232.

Tolstoy says it is ironic that the only exceptions to these rules are a group of those resisting the current order and who continue the message of Christ but hate his name. (They hate his name because they confuse Christianity as it exists in the Pauline-deformed version of today with the Christ-version which was founded by the true apostles.) Tolstoy explains:

"Fortunately there is a remnant, made up of the noblest minds of the age, who are not contented with this religion, but have an entirely different faith with regard to what the life of man ought to be. These men are looked upon as the most malevolent, the most dangerous, and generally as the most unbelieving of all human beings, and yet they are the only men of our time believing in the Gospel doctrine, if not as a whole, at least in part. These people, as a general thing, know little of the doctrine of Jesus ; they do not understand it, ....; often they have nothing but a hatred for the name of Jesus ; but their whole faith with regard to what life ought to be is unconsciously based upon the humane and eternal truths comprised in the Christian doctrine. This remnant, in spite of calumny and persecution, are the only ones who do not tamely submit to the orders of the first comer. Consequently they are the only ones in these days who live a reasonable and not an animal life, the only ones who have faith." Id., at 235.

The necessity at this juncture is to consciously restore the doctrines of Jesus which are unconsciously being followed by a dissenting but egalitarian movement. Tolstoy encourages us to abandon the church which is devoid of Christ's doctrines:

"The truth of the doctrine of Jesus, once unconsciously absorbed by humanity through the organism of the Church, must now be consciously recognized; for in the truth of this doctrine humanity has always obtained its vital force. Men must lift up the torch of truth, which has so long remained concealed, and carry it before them, guiding their actions by its light.

"The doctrine of Jesus, as a religion that governs the actions of men and explains to them the meaning of life, is now before the world just as it was eighteen hundred years ago. Formerly the world had the explanations of the Church which, in concealing the doctrine, seemed in itself to offer a satisfactory interpretation of life ; but now the time is come when the Church has lost its usefulness, and the world, having no other means for sustaining its true existence, can only feel its helplessness and go for aid directly to the doctrine of Jesus." Id., at 238.

Tolstoy in the next chapter says following just Jesus's doctrines is the path to happiness and salvation:

"I BELIEVE in the doctrine of Jesus, and this is my religion: — I believe that nothing but the fulfilment of the doctrine of Jesus can give true happiness to men. I believe that the fulfilment of this doctrine is possible, easy, and pleasant. I believe that although none other follows this doctrine, and I alone am left to practise it, I cannot refuse to obey it, if I would save my life from the certainty of eternal loss; just as a man in a burning house if he find a door of safety, must go out, so I must avail myself of the way to salvation. I believe that my life according to the doctrine of the world has been a torment, and that a life according to the doctrine of Jesus can alone give me in this world the happiness for which I was destined by the Father of Life. I believe that this doctrine is essential to the welfare of humanity, will save me from the certainty of eternal loss, and will give me in this world the greatest possible sum of happiness. Believing thus, I am obliged to practise its commandments." Id., at 245.

Tolstoy was the greatest modern proponent of what I call the Jesus' Words Only principle.

http://www.jesuswordsonly.com/recommendedreading/184-tolstoy-on-paulinism.html