Jeremy Bentham - Not Paul, But Jesus

Arabia, a promising field of enterprise – Arabia, a virgin soil, opened to his view. There he would find none to abhor his person – none to contradict his assertions: there his eloquence – and, under the direction of his judgment, his invention – would find free scope: in that country the reproach of inconsistency could not attach upon him: in that foreign land he beheld his place of quarantine – his school of probation – the scene of his novitiate. By a few years employed in the exercise of his new calling – with that spirit and activity which would accompany him of course in every occupation to which he could betake himself – he would initiate himself in, and familiarize himself with, the connected exercises of preaching and spiritual rule. At the end of that period, whatsoever might be his success in that country, such a portion of time, passed in innocence, would at any rate allay enmity: such a portion of time, manifestly passed, in the endeavour at any rate to render service to the common cause, might even establish confidence.

At the end of that time, he might, nor altogether without hope of success, present himself to the rulers of the church, in the metropolis of their spiritual empire: "Behold, he might say, in me no longer a persecutor, but a friend. The persecutor has long vanished: he has given place to the friend. Too true it is, that I was so once your persecutor. Years spent in unison with you – years spent in the service of the common cause – have proved me. You see before you, a tried man – an ally of tried fidelity: present me as such to your disciples: take me into your councils: all my talent, all my faculties, shall be yours. The land of Israel will continue, as it has been, the field of your holy labours; the land of the Gentiles shall be mine: we will carry on our operations in concert; innumerable are the ways in which each of us will derive from the other – information, assistance, and support."

To Arabia he accordingly repaired: so, in his Epistle to the Galatians, Gal. i. 17, he himself informs us: in that little-known country, he continued three whole years – so also, in the same place, he informs us. There it was, that he experienced that success, whatever it was, that went to constitute the ground, of the recommendation given of him by Barnabas to the Apostles. From thence he returned to Damascus: and, in that city, presenting himself in his regenerated character, and having realized by his subsequent conduct the expectations raised by his promises at the outset of his career 18

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To prevent, if possible, an embarrassment, which might otherwise be liable to have place on the part of the reader, – and therewith, the idea of inconsistency, as having place here and there in the work, – the following indication may be found to have its use.

A cloud of uncertainty, to the length of one or two years, hangs over the duration of the period embraced by this work: namely, that between the point of time at which the conversion of Paul is stated to have taken place, and the point of time at which the history, intituled The Acts of the Apostles, as therein declared, concludes: – a point of time, posterior by two years to that of his arrival at Rome.

For making the requisite separation, between the two religions of Jesus and the religion of Paul, – an instrument, alike commodious and unexceptionable, has – for these many years, though, assuredly, not with any such view, – been presented to all hands, by Doctor Gastrell , an English and Church of England Bishop: namely, in a well-known work, intituled The Christian Institutes : date of the 14th Edition, 1808. It is composed of a collection of points of faith and morality, and under each are quoted the several texts, in the New Testament, which are regarded by the author as affording grounds for the positions indicated. If then, anywhere, in his composition of the ground, passages, one or more, from this or that Epistle of Paul, are employed, – unaccompanied with any passage, extracted from any of the four Gospels, – the reader may, without much danger of error, venture to conclude, that it is to the religion of Paul alone, that the point of doctrine thus supported appertains, and not to the religion of Jesus. As to any of the Epistles, which bear the name of any of the real Apostles of Jesus, – a corresponding question may perhaps be here suggesting itself. But, with regard to the design of the present work, scarcely will they be found relevant. For, when compared with the sayings of Jesus as repeated in the four Gospels, scarcely will they be found exhibiting any additional points of doctrine: never, pregnant with any of those dissentions, which, from the writings of Paul, have issued in such disastrous abundance. Only lest they should be thought to have been overlooked, is any mention here made, of those documents, which, how much soever on other accounts entitled to regard, may, with reference to the question between the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul, be, as above, and without impropriety, stated as irrelevant.

Of the word conversion , as employed everywhere and in all times in speaking of Paul, commonly called Saint Paul, the import has been found involved in such a cloud, as, on pain of perpetual misconception, it has been found necessary, here at the outset, to clear away. That, from being an ardent and destructive persecutor of the disciples of the departed Jesus, he became their collaborator, and in that sense their ally, – preaching, in speech, and by writing, a religion under the name of the religion of Jesus, assuming even the appellation of an Apostle of Jesus, — Apostle , that is to say, special envoy – (that being the title by which the twelve most confidential servants of Jesus stood distinguished), is altogether out of dispute. That in this sense he became a convert to the religion of Jesus, and that in this sense his alleged conversion was real, is accordingly in this work not only admitted, but affirmed. Few points of ancient history seem more satisfactorily attested. In this sense then he was converted beyond dispute. Call this then his outward conversion ; and say, Paul's outward conversion is indubitable. But, that this conversion had for its cause, or consequence, any supernatural intercourse with the Almighty, or any belief in the supernatural character of Jesus himself; this is the position, the erroneousness of which has, in the eyes of the author, been rendered more and more assured, the more closely the circumstances of the case have been looked into. That, in speech and even in action, he was in outward appearance a convert to the religion of Jesus; this is what is admitted: that, inwardly, he was a convert to the religion of Jesus, believing Jesus to be God, or authorized by any supernatural commission from God; this is the position, the negative of which it is the object of the present work to render as evident to the reader, as a close examination has rendered it to the author. The consequence, the practical consequence, follows of itself. In the way of doctrine, whatsoever, being in the Epistles of Paul is not in any one of the Gospels, belongs to Paul, and Paul alone, and forms no part of the religion of Jesus. This is what it seemed necessary to state at the opening; and to this, in the character of a conclusion, the argument will be seen all along to tend.