John Gresham Machen - The Origin of Paul's Religion

But if the successes of the oriental religions do not detract from the achievement of Paul, what shall be said of the successes of pre-Christian Judaism? It must always be remembered that Judaism, in the first century, was an active missionary religion. Even Palestinian Judaism was imbued with the missionary spirit; Jesus said to the Pharisees that they compassed sea and land to make one proselyte. The Judaism of the Dispersion was no doubt even more zealous for winning adherents. The numberless synagogues scattered throughout the cities of the Greco-Roman world were not attended, as Jewish synagogues are attended to-day, only by Jews, but were also filled with hosts of Gentiles, some of whom had accepted circumcision and become full Jews, but others of whom, forming the class called in the Book of Acts "God-fearers" or "God-worshipers," had accepted the monotheism of the Jews and the lofty morality of the Old Testament without definitely uniting themselves with the people of Israel. In addition to this propaganda in the synagogues, an elaborate literary propaganda, of which important remnants have been preserved, helped to carry on the missionary work. The question therefore arises whether the preaching of Paul was anything more than a continuation, though in any case a noteworthy continuation, of this pre-Christian Jewish mission.

Here again, as in the case of the longing for redemption which is attested by the successes of the oriental religions, an important element in the preparation for the gospel must certainly be detected. It is hard to exaggerate the service which was rendered to the Pauline mission by the Jewish synagogue. One of the most important problems for every missionary is the problem of gaining a hearing. The problem may be solved in various ways. Sometimes the missionary may hire a place of meeting and advertise; sometimes he may talk on the street corners to passers-by. But for Paul the problem was solved. All that he needed to do was to enter the synagogue and exercise the privilege of speaking, which was accorded with remarkable liberality to visiting teachers. In the synagogue, moreover, Paul found an audience not only of Jews but also of Gentiles; everywhere the "God-fearers" were to be found. These Gentile attendants upon the synagogues formed not only an audience but a picked audience; they were just the class of persons who were most likely to be won by the gospel preaching. In their case much of the preliminary work had been accomplished; they were already acquainted with the doctrine of the one true God; they had already, through the lofty ethical teaching of the Old Testament, come to connect religion with morality in a way which is to us matter-of-course but was very exceptional in the ancient world. Where, as in the market-place at Athens, Paul had to begin at the very beginning, without presupposing this previous instruction on the part of his hearers, his task was rendered far more difficult.

Undoubtedly, in the case of many of his converts he did have to begin in that way; the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, for example, presupposes, perhaps, converts who turned directly from idols to serve the living and true God. But even in such cases the God-fearers formed a nucleus; their manifold social relationships provided points of contact with the rest of the Gentile population. The debt which the Christian Church owes to the Jewish synagogue is simply measureless.

This acknowledgment, however, does not mean that the Pauline mission was only a continuation of the pre-Christian missionary activity of the Jews. On the contrary, the very earnestness of the effort made by the Jews to convert their Gentile neighbors serves to demonstrate all the more clearly the hopelessness of their task. One thing that was fundamental in the religion of the Jews was its exclusiveness. The people of Israel, according to the Old Testament, was the chosen people of God; the notion of a covenant between God and His chosen people was absolutely central in all ages of the Jewish Church. The Old Testament did indeed clearly provide a method by which strangers could be received into the covenant; they could be received whenever, by becoming circumcised and undertaking the observance of the Mosaic Law, they should relinquish their own nationality and become part of the nation of Israel. But this method seemed hopelessly burdensome. Even before the time of Paul it had become evident that the Gentile world as a whole would never submit to such terms. The terms were therefore sometimes relaxed. Covenant privileges were offered by individual Jewish teachers to individual Gentiles without requiring what was most offensive, like circumcision; merit was sought by some of the Gentiles by observance of only certain parts of the Law, such as the requirements about the Sabbath or the provisions about food. Apparently widespread also was the attitude of those persons who seem to have accepted what may be called the spiritual, as distinguished from the ceremonial, aspects of Judaism. But all such compromises were affected by a deadly weakness. The strict requirements of the Law were set forth plainly in the Old Testament. To cast them aside, in the interests of missionary activity, meant a sacrifice of principle to practice; it meant a sacrifice of the zeal and the good conscience of the missionaries and of the true satisfaction of the converts. One of the chief attractions of Judaism to the world of that day was the possession of an ancient and authoritative Book; the world was eagerly searching for authority in religion. Yet if the privileges of the Old Testament were to be secured, the authority of the Book had to be set aside. The character of a national religion was therefore too indelibly stamped upon the religion of Israel; the Gentile converts could at best only be admitted into an outer circle around the true household of God. What pre-Christian Judaism had to offer was therefore obviously insufficient. Perhaps the tide of the Jewish mission had already begun to ebb before the time of Paul; perhaps the process of the withdrawal of Judaism into its age-long seclusion had already begun. Undoubtedly that process was hastened by the rivalry of Christianity, which offered far more than Judaism had offered and offered it on far more acceptable terms. But the process sooner or later would inevitably have made itself felt. Whether or not Renan was correct in supposing that had it not been for Christianity the world would have been Mithraic, one thing is certain—the world apart from Christianity would never have become Jewish.

But was not the preaching of Paul itself one manifestation of that liberalizing tendency among the Jews to which allusion has just been made and of which the powerlessness has just been asserted? Was not the attitude of Paul in remitting the requirement of circumcision, while he retained the moral and spiritual part of the Old Testament Law—especially if, as the Book of Acts asserts, he assented upon occasion to the imposition of certain of the less burdensome parts even of the ceremonial Law—very similar to the action of a teacher like that Ananias who was willing to receive king Izates of Adiabene without requiring him to be circumcised? These questions in recent years have occasionally been answered in the affirmative, especially by Kirsopp Lake. [4]But despite the plausibility of Lake's representation he has thereby introduced a root error into his reconstruction of the apostolic age. For whatever the teaching of Paul was, it certainly was not "liberalism." The background of Paul is not to be sought in liberal Judaism, but in the strictest sect of the Pharisees. And Paul's remission of the requirement of circumcision was similar only in form, at the most, to the action of the Ananias who has just been mentioned. In motive and in principle it was diametrically opposite. Gentile freedom according to Paul was not something permitted; it was something absolutely required. And it was required just by the strictest interpretation of the Old Testament Law. If Paul had been a liberal Jew, he would never have been the apostle to the Gentiles; for he would never have developed his doctrine of the Cross. Gentile freedom, in other words, was not, according to Paul, a relaxing of strict requirements in the interests of practical missionary work; it was a matter of principle. For the first time the religion of Israel could go forth (or rather was compelled to go forth) with a really good conscience to the spiritual conquest of the world.