John Gresham Machen - The Origin of Paul's Religion

Nevertheless, the criticism of Baur and Zeller, though no longer accepted as a whole, is still influential; the comparison of Acts and Galatians, particularly in that which concerns the Apostolic Council of Acts xv, is still often thought to result unfavorably to the Book of Acts. Even at this point, however, a more favorable estimate of Acts has been gaining ground. The cardinal principle of Baur, to the effect that the major epistles of Paul should be interpreted entirely without reference to the Book of Acts, is being called in question. Such a method of interpretation, it may well be urged, is likely to result in one-sidedness. If the Book of Acts commends itself at all as containing trustworthy information, it should be allowed to cast light upon the Epistles. The account which Paul gives in Galatians is not so complete as to render superfluous any assistance which may be derived from an independent narrative. And as a matter of fact, no matter what principles of interpretation are held, the Book of Acts simply must be used in interpreting the Epistles; without the outline given in Acts the Epistles would be unintelligible. [16]Perhaps it may turn out, therefore, that Baur produced his imposing reconstruction of the apostolic age by neglecting all sources except Galatians and the Corinthian Epistles—and then by misinterpreting these.

The comparison of Acts and the Pauline Epistles will be reserved for the chapters that deal with the outline of Paul's life. It will there be necessary to deal with the vexed question of the Apostolic Council. The question is vital for the present discussion; for if it can really be shown that Paul was in fundamental disagreement with the intimate friends of Jesus of Nazareth, then the way is opened for supposing that he was in disagreement with Jesus Himself. The question raised by Baur with regard to the Book of Acts has a most important bearing upon the question of the origin of Paulinism.

All that can now be done, however, is to point out that the tendency at the present time is toward a higher and higher estimate of the Book of Acts. A more careful study of the Pauline Epistles themselves is exhibiting elements in Paul's thinking which justify more and more clearly the account which the Book of Acts gives of the relations of Paul to Judaism and to Jewish Christianity.

CHAPTER II

THE EARLY YEARS

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Before examining the various hypotheses which have been advanced to account for the origin of Paulinism, the investigator must consider first the outline of Paul's life, at least so far as the formative years are concerned. Paulinism has been explained by the influence upon Paul of various features of his environment. It is important, therefore, to determine at what points Paul came into contact with his environment. What, in view of the outline of his life, were his probable opportunities for acquainting himself with the historical Jesus and with the primitive Jerusalem Church? Whence did he derive his Judaism? Where, if at all, could he naturally have been influenced by contemporary paganism? Such questions, it is hoped, may be answered by the two following chapters.

In these chapters, the outline of Paul's life will be considered not for its own sake, but merely for the light that it may shed upon the origin of his thought and experience. Many questions, therefore, may be ignored. For example, it would here be entirely aside from the point to discuss such intricate matters as the history of Paul's journeys to Corinth attested by the Corinthian Epistles. The present discussion is concerned only with those events in the life of Paul which determined the nature of his contact with the surrounding world, both Jewish and pagan, and particularly the nature of his contact with Jesus and the earliest disciples of Jesus.

Paul was born at Tarsus, the chief city of Cilicia. This fact is attested only by the Book of Acts, and formerly it did not escape unchallenged. It was called in question, for example, in 1890 by Krenkel, in an elaborate argument. [17]But Krenkel's argument is now completely antiquated, not merely because of the rising credit of the Book of Acts, but also because the birth of Paul in a Greek city like Tarsus is in harmony with modern reconstructions. Krenkel argued, for example, that the apostle shows little acquaintance with Greek culture, and therefore could not have spent his youth in a Greek university city. Such assertions appear very strange to-day. Recent philological investigation of the Pauline Epistles has proved that the author uses the Greek language in such masterly fashion that he must have become familiar with it very early in life; the language of the Epistles is certainly no Jewish-Greek jargon. With regard to the origin of the ideas, also, the tendency of recent criticism is directly contrary to Krenkel; Paulinism is now often explained as being based either upon paganism or else upon a Hellenized Judaism. To such reconstructions it is a highly welcome piece of information when the Book of Acts makes Paul a native not of Jerusalem but of Tarsus. The author of Acts, it is said, is here preserving a bit of genuine tradition, which is the more trustworthy because it runs counter to the tendency, thought to be otherwise in evidence in Acts, which brings Paul into the closest possible relation to Palestine. Thus, whether for good or for bad reasons, the birth of Paul in Tarsus is now universally accepted, and does not require defense.

A very interesting tradition preserved by Jerome does indeed make Paul a native of Gischala in Galilee; but no one to-day would be inclined to follow Krenkel in giving credence to Jerome rather than to Acts. The Gischala tradition does not look like a pure fiction, but it is evident that Jerome has at any rate exercised his peculiar talent for bringing things into confusion. Zahn [18]has suggested, with considerable plausibility, that the shorter reference to Gischala in the treatise "De viris illustribus" [19]is a confused abridgment of the longer reference in the "Commentary on Philemon." [20]The latter passage asserts not that Paul himself but only that the parents of Paul came from Gischala. That assertion may possibly be correct. It would explain the Aramaic and Palestinian tradition which undoubtedly was preserved in the boyhood home of Paul.

Tarsus was an important city. Its commercial importance, though of course inferior to that of places like Antioch or Corinth, was considerable; and it was also well known as a center of intellectual life. Although the dramatic possibilities of representing the future Christian missionary growing up unknown under the shadow of a Greek university may sometimes have led to an exaggeration of the academic fame of Tarsus, still it remains true that Tarsus was a real university city, and could boast of great names like that of Athenodorus, the Stoic philosopher, and others. The life of Tarsus has recently been made the subject of two elaborate monographs, by Ramsay [21]and by Böhlig, [22]who have collected a mass of information about the birthplace of Paul. The nature of the pagan religious atmosphere which surrounded the future apostle is of peculiar interest; but the amount of direct information which has come down to us should not be exaggerated.

The social position of Paul's family in Tarsus must not be regarded as very humble; for according to the Book of Acts not only Paul himself, but his father before him, possessed the Roman citizenship, which in the provinces was still in the first century a highly prized privilege from which the great masses of the people were excluded. The Roman citizenship of Paul is not attested by the Pauline Epistles, but the representation of Acts is at this point universally, or almost universally, accepted. Only one objection might be urged against it. If Paul was a Roman citizen, how could he have been subjected three times to the Roman punishment of beating with rods (2 Cor. xi. 25), from which citizens were exempted by law? The difficulty is not insuperable. Paul may on some occasions have been unwilling to appeal to a privilege which separated him from his Jewish countrymen; or he may have wanted to avoid the delay which an appeal to his privilege, with the subsequent investigation and trial, might have caused. At any rate, the difficulty, whether easily removable or not, is quite inadequate to overthrow the abundant evidence for the fact of Paul's Roman citizenship. That fact is absolutely necessary to account for the entire representation which the Book of Acts gives of the journey of Paul as a prisoner to Rome, which representation, it will be remembered, is contained in the we-sections. The whole account of the relation between Paul and Roman authorities, which is contained in the Pauline Epistles, the Book of Acts, and trustworthy Christian tradition, is explicable only if Paul possessed the rights of citizenship. [23]