GEZA VERMES on PAUL

At the conclusion of my lectures on 'Exploring Christian Roots' I like to find Jesus - or what is lacking - in Paul's writings with the help of Geza Vermes from his latest work The changing faces of Jesus.

Here then my notes from his chapter on Paul.

Vermes calls Paul, 'The Odd Man Out Among the Apostles', and he sees him as the 'father' of that Christ figure which was to dominate Western European Christianity. Paul is hailed by independent scholars as the true founder of the Christian religion and its institutions, and even a sound and solid publication such as 'The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church' describes Paul as 'the creator of the whole doctrinal and ecclesiastical system presupposed in his Epistles'.

Paul is the best known and probably the most controversial character in the New Testament. Unlike Jesus, he recorded his thoughts in writing and through his letters we can learn a great deal about his life, ideas, and personality.

Of the collection of 14 letters ascribed to Paul, more than half, namely, the letters to the Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Philemon, 1 and probably 2 Thessalonians, are recognized by contemporary scholars of the New Testament as written by Paul, and as early as in the fifties.

Some of the letters contain incidental autobiographical features which allow a deeper grasp of his mentality and motivation.

Also, about half the Acts of the Apostles is actually an account of the life and missionary activity of Paul, that supplements, - confirming or contradicting, - the information from Paul himself.

All these facts, preserved in this way, help a careful and critical observer to discover the inspiration that underlies Paul's portrait of Jesus.

Paul's Bio

Vermes gives first some biographical information about Paul,

- that his name, for the Jews was Saul,

- where he was born, in Tarsus in southern Turkey,

- that he must have been a 10-15 years younger than Jesus,

- and that he was a Roman citizen by birth.

Paul himself never refers in any of his letters to his birthplace or his citizenship; this silence is surprising since these two factors must have played an important a part in Paul's story as the author of the Acts implies.

Paul describes himself as a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin and an adherent of the religious party of the Pharisees (Rom. 11:1; 2 Cor. 11:22; Phil. 3:5). Acts 22:3 adds that he studied in Jerusalem 'at the feet of Gamaliel', one of the leaders of the Pharisees in the first half of the first century. Nevertheless, Paul's persistent silence on this subject adds a question mark to the validity of the information given to us by Acts. How good a Pharisee he had become or remained is a question, bearing in mind how easily he could allow his Gentile followers (and himself) dispensation from observance of Jewish dietary rules and other Mosaic ritual precepts.

He did possess however two certain Pharisaic features:

a) he had an undeniable facility for argument, positively or negatively, from Bible texts. The letters to the Romans and Galatians are particularly rich in Old Testament quotations used as conclusive proof. Paul was perfectly capable of turning the meaning of a scriptural passage upside-down in arguing that the Jews were the children of Hagar, Abraham's concubine, and Christians the children of Sarah through Isaac (Gal. 4:21-31).

b) Secondly, Paul was also proud of his 'typically Pharisee-belief in bodily resurrection', which he skillfully exploited in his polemical speech before the representatives of the Jewish high council in Jerusalem and in Caesarea, gaining the sympathy of its Pharisee members.(Acts 23:6-7; cf. 24:21).

Paul spoke in his native Greek, but, if we can believe Acts 21:40, he could also improvise an address 'in the Hebrew dialect', Aramaic.

His letters were dictated in Greek, but he sometimes appended small sections, , in his own hand (cf.1 C 16:21 also Gal. 6:11; 2 Thess. 3:17; Philem. 19).

He must have suffered from some kind of disease which he called 'a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan' (2 Cor. 12:7), which has been diagnosed by scholars in various ways.

According to his Greek critics, Paul's letters were 'weighty, and strong, though his bodily presence was weak, and his speech of no account' (2 Cor. 10:10). He himself admitted that he was not a great orator (2 Cor. 11:6). His success, mostly among uneducated Greeks, suggests a magnetic character with a charismatic message. (1 Cor. 2:3-4).

We find in his letters as well as in Acts that he at first was intensely hostile toward the Jesus movement. Paul's own words are straightforward: 'I persecuted the church of God. (I Cor. 15:9 Gal. 1:13-14).

Acts provides us with more colorful, but historically sometimes problematic, details. On one occasion he acted as the accredited envoy of the high priest to the Jewish synagogues of Damascus, with as purpose, to cleanse the local community from the followers of Jesus (Acts 8:3; 9:1-2).

Acts also tells us that Paul took a passive part in the stoning of the Jesus follower, Stephen, in Jerusalem, by keeping an eye on the clothes of the executioners. (Acts 7:58; 8:1; 26:9-11).

Conversion or Revelation

Then something extraordinary happened to Paul, which occasioned a complete about-face.

His own account in Gal 1:16 is very sober: 'God was pleased to reveal his Son to me'. The place where it happened is not identified but it is by implication on the way to Damascus (Gal. 1:17).

The story in Acts is enriched with legendary features: Paul, approaching Damascus, is blinded by a light from heaven and is addressed in Aramaic by a voice which identifies itself as that of Jesus (Acts 26:14). In a single instant, Paul the persecutor becomes an enthusiastic follower, so much so that the letter to the Galatians (1:16) defines Paul's vocation immediately as the 'preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles'.

In Acts he at once confronts the Jews of Damascus and upsets them so much by his teaching on Jesus that he has to escape the city by night, being lowered from the wall in a basket (9:20-25). According to Acts Paul then right away joined the church in Jerusalem, where he is introduced to the apostles by his co-patriot Barnabas. But here too - by arguing with the Hellenists or Greek speaking Jews - he made them so furious that to save his life the members of the church speedily spirited him away from Jerusalem to his home town, Tarsus (Acts 9:26-30).

He reappeared again later in Antioch 'as the assistant of Barnabas', but in no time Paul took over the leading role. He always refers to himself before Barnabas (1 Cor. 9:6; Gal. 2:1, 9). Within a short time they twice clashed in Antioch and finally parted company (Gal. 2:13; Acts 15:36-40). Paul was not an easy partner unless he was the boss.

This is Acts' story.

Paul himself has given indications that things went differently. Getting away from Damascus was for him a need to elude the guards of the governor of Damascus appointed by the Nabataean king Aretas (9 B.C.-A.D. 40; cf. 2 Cor. 11:32-33). If so, the real reason for Paul's get-away was that his original task of arresting Jewish residents of Damascus was considered by the secular authority as a threat to law and order.

Paul also expressly denies that he went from Damascus to Jerusalem to visit the apostles; rather he went to the Arabian desert in Transjordan (Gal. 1:17), where he had a mystical experience (2 C 12:2-4). From there he returned to Damascus (Gal. 1:17), and three years later had his first brief meeting in Jerusalem with Peter (Cephas) and James, the brother of Jesus. From there he departed for his mission in Syria and Cilicia (Gal. 1:18-21).

He must have felt like the odd man among the apostles, which would inevitably have influenced his depiction of Jesus.

As we have seen, he opposed those wanting to be Jews under the Law, Jewish members of the Jerusalem church headed by James, the brother of the Lord, who could not accept Paul's willingness to offer dispensation to Gentile believers from the observance of Mosaic Law.

Paul must have realized at that visit that he could not be an 'apostle' in the way some in the movement saw this function. He was not one who 'accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John'. (Acts 1:21-22).

Still he felt 'fully commissioned by Jesus', needing no appointment, but only recognition by the earlier apostles. He saw himself as 'directly chosen by the will of God' (1 Cor. 1:1; 2 Cor. 1:1; Gal. 1:1), and he could ask: 'Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?' (1 Cor. 9:1).

According to Paul's accounts he first visited with Peter (Cephas) and James, the brother of Jesus, but not with other leaders of various communities. (Gal 1:18-21). When he returned to Jerusalem fourteen years later with Barnabas it was to inform the apostles of his gospel to the Gentiles. He behaved that time like Peter's equal:

'I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised' (Gal. 2:7).

He firmly let it be known that he had received approval from the 'pillars' of the church, James, Cephas (Peter), and John (Gal. 2:1-9).

Both Paul and Acts tell us how Paul later opposed Peter. As usual, Acts offers a smoother representation of the conflict that happened at that time, referring to an 'apostolic synod', that culminated in a diplomatic settlement, nowhere mentioned by Paul.

It was declared that Gentile Christians were acknowledged as members of the church as long as they observed the commandments which entailed abstention from 'meat sacrificed to idols', from the flesh of strangled animals, and from the eating of blood, as well as from gross sexual immorality (Acts 15:1-29).

As a headstrong personality, Paul was often at the center of conflicts throughout his missionary career. The church of Corinth founded by him soon split into competing factions.

On the other hand, Paul's devotion to his mission knew no limits where the success of his gospel was at stake. He willingly suffered hunger, thirst, cold, exposure, dangerous journeys, shipwrecks, imprisonment, beatings, and stoning (2 Cor. 11:23-27).

He could also be calculating and ready to compromise:

'To the Jews I became as a Jew ... to those under the law I became as one under the law ... To those outside the law I became as one outside the law ... I have become all things to all men' (1 Cor. 9:20-22).

Or in short,

    'I try to please all men in everything I do' (1 Cor. 10:33).

Paul about Jesus

We are coming now to what Paul says about Jesus. What does Paul know about Jesus and his teaching and how did he use it?

First it's good te remember that he had no contact with the earthly Jesus; neither did he hear his teaching nor did he experience his spiritual presence and influence. Intelligent as he was, though, he devised a new, non-historical approach to the Lord Jesus.

Knowledge of Jesus by oral tradition

Concerning the 'message of Jesus', Paul willingly admitted that some of the basic notions came to him by word of mouth from those who preceded him in the church. In 1 C 15:3-7 he lists among the fundamentals the 'death and resurrection' of Jesus.

'For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins ... that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day ... and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time ... Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles'.

That same tradition is implied in Paul's summary of 'the gospel of God' at the opening of the Epistle to the Romans (Rom. 1:3-4)

Only two further examples in the sum of Paul's letters cite teachings of Jesus that had been handed down, no doubt through the channel of the oral tradition of the church.

The first one concerns the absolute prohibition of divorce recorded in Mk 10:11-12, without the exception clause, 'save for fornication', mentioned in Mt 5:32 and 19:9: 'To the married I give charge, - not I but the Lord, - that the wife should not separate from her husband ... and that the husband should not divorce his wife' (1 Cor. 7:10-11).

However, despite the belief that the precept originated with Jesus, Paul felt free to modify its application in the next verse with the remark, 'I say, - not the Lord' (1 Cor. 7:12). The application concerned a newly baptized person, already married to Gentile man or woman, whose pagan spouse objected to conversion. In such case, Paul permitted divorce, followed by the Christian partner's remarriage (1 Cor. 7:15). This became known as the Pauline privilege, and this exception is still part of the canon law of the Roman Catholic church (Codex Iuris Canonici, 1120-27).

As a second precept of Jesus transmitted by tradition, Paul mentions the 'entitlement of the Christian preacher' to be provided for by the faithful (cf. Luke 10:7)

'The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel' (1 Cor. 9:14).

Even so, Paul himself preferred not to avail himself of that previlige and instead earned a living by manual work, apparently as a tent maker. (Acts 18:3)

There is still the matter of Paul's account of the establishment of the eucharistic meal. He complained about division among members of the church of Corinth when they were partaking of the Lord's supper. Instead of sharing a common meal, the rich and the poor had recourse to their own provisions and as a result some remained hungry and others became drunk (1 Cor. 11:20-21). They should all share, Paul ordered, the same bread, symbolizing the body, and the same cup, symbolizing the blood of the Lord, making them contemplate the death of Christ until his return.

Paul's eucharist is basically an allegorical or mystical reminder of Jesus' violent end. He does not dwell, however, as shockingly as John does (cf. chapter 2, note 7) and even slightly less than the Synoptics (Matt. 26:26-29; Mark 14:22-25; Luke 22:15-20) on the 'actual' identification of the bread and wine as 'Christ's body and blood' to be eaten and drunk. Paul has his own way of recounting the event both in 1 Cor. 11 and in 1 Cor. 10:16-17. He taught that the purpose of the mystical union or communion with the body and blood of Christ is 'symbolically' to bind the many members of the church into a single whole.

This indicates that Paul re-edited the traditional version. And we could ask: 'which version', since even in the Synoptic Gospels there are no two accounts of the institution of the eucharist that are alike. John's last supper has nothing to do with the eucharist.

Paul's introductory formula intimates that he meant to say something original and not just to reproduce an oft-repeated story. In general, when handing down church tradition transmitted to him by anonymous agents, such as Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and later apparitions (1 Cor. 15:3-5), he introduces his statement with: 'I delivered to you ... what I also received' (from tradition) (I Cor. 15:3).

In the case of the eucharist, however, his source is said to be Jesus, implying that it was directly 'revealed' to him. 'I received 'from the Lord' what I also delivered to you' (1 Cor. 11:23).

This means, that very probably Paul's wording may have been the primary source for the New Testament formulation of the establishment of the eucharist, excluding thus a tradition that went back directly to Jesus. In other words, there is a good chance that the eucharistic interpretation of the communal meal of the church was due to Paul, and that the editors of Mark, Matthew, and especially Luke, who follows Paul most closely, introduced it into their respective accounts in the Synoptic Gospels.

So we can see what Paul has to offer as 'tradition' are 'important issues'.

He does, however, present us with very little about the life and teaching of Jesus, which had its 'own tradition' in Q, that was in subsequent decades used by the 4 gospel writers. Paul did not built on that tradition, but instead 'he relied on 'heavenly communications and visions'.

'When he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me' (Gal. 1:16-17).

In other words, says Vermes, 'Paul did not solicit tutorials, convinced as he was that he knew all that he needed to know. Nor did he endeavor, as the evangelists did, to rehearse and reinterpret the story and the preaching of Jesus; his task was to reveal to the world the 'divinely designed meaning and purpose', and the achievements, of the crucified redeemer and savior of humankind'.

In fact everything seems to suggest, - that in order to emphasize the paramount importance of the 'Jesus revealed in visions', Paul deliberately turned his back on the historical figure, the Jesus according to the flesh, kata sarka.

Apart from the basic facts concerning the origins of Jesus - born of woman - and incidental allusions to his moral or liturgical injunctions, all we learn from Paul is that he was betrayed and died on the cross before rising from the dead, and appearing first to his apostles and disciples, and finally to Paul. In brief, Paul's eyes were firmly averted from the living Galilean holy man about whom he had nothing original to say. The Jesus according to the flesh on whose behalf he could have acted only as a secondhand witness did not appeal to him. Polemically, and perhaps apologetically, he remarked that had he known Christ 'according to the flesh', he would prefer 'not to know him thus any longer' (2 Cor. 5:16). In Paul's gospel he focused on the dying and risen Christ, and his supernatural accomplishments on behalf of the faithful.

Kingdom and Parousia

We owe it to Paul to mention a few items that help us to sketch his limited picture of Jesus.

One item is his expectation of the Kingdom of God that he saw simultaneously with the Parousia, the return of Christ.

The imminent coming of the Kingdom of God still plays a notable role in Paul's thinking and is reflected in his letters ( Thess, Gal, 1 Cor, and Rom) written between A.D. 50 and 56.

In regard to the 'impending onset of the eschatological age', or as he saw it: 'the day of (the returning) our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Cor. 1:8; Phil. 2:16), Paul's hope differed only slightly from the expectation of Jesus. Urgency characterized both. Jesus saw the Kingdom of God lurking just around the corner, and showing itself from time to time.

In Paul's letters we can find reflected a variety of thinking about the 'returning of the Lord', such as: 'a sure faith that the return of the Lord would occur at any moment' (1 Thess. 4:15, 5:2), and certainly 'during their lifetime'. (1 Cor. 7:29)

A little later in the early fifties rumors began to spread in Thessalonica that Christ had already returned and that this event had been announced in a letter from Paul. As a result some Christians in that area stopped working in the certainty of an instant manifestation of the Lord. Paul reacted and send them back to work (2 Thess. 2:1-8; 3:6-12).

Says Vermes: 'Paul's faith in the fast-approaching second coming, obvious in Thess 1 & 2 and 1 Cor, affected not only his representation of Jesus Christ, but also the manner in which he instructed and led his flock'.

Both Jesus and Paul lived through the same conditions of 'feverish insecurity', not knowing what would happen next, also because of the fact that they were surrounded by followers of different backgrounds.

Jesus' disciples were Jews trained from childhood in how to behave and how to distinguish between good and evil in the light of centuries of Jewish religious tradition. All they had to learn was the meaning of absolute urgency, a total concentration on the needs of the present moment. While he was alive and leading his followers, Jesus did not need any specific communal organization.

Paul, on the other hand, had to care for freshly disciplined Gentile Christians who came from a totally different religious and moral environment. Despite the proximity of 'the day of the Lord', they needed constant guidance and supervision by their own leaders, and when necessary, by Paul himself.

Vermes gives a long list of advice and prescriptions Paul gives to his embattled church communities (76-78).

Paul's view on Jesus

Paul had a grandiose vision of the work of Jesus Christ in the history of salvation of both Jews and Gentiles. He saw the climax of this history in the form of an ultimate contest between compliant Gentiles and obstinate Jews, and he was also fully aware of the decisive role assigned to him personally in the divine plan to bring this conflict to a triumphant and happy ending.

For him the salvation drama is played out by two stars, the first Adam, and Jesus Christ, the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45).

I pass up further explanation of his description of the drama, since it leads to Paul's christology, which is theology.

A few short sketches on how Paul saw Jesus, as: Son of God and universal redeemer of mankind.

First, Paul pays no attention to the biblical expectation of a king messiah or its fulfillment in Jesus the Christ. 84

He presented Christ - as a Jew he saw him as an anointed one - to the Gentiles as a 'Savior figure', and this because of Jesus' death and resurrection. The biblical untrained Christians in Paul's local churches were unaware that Paul was twisting the Jewish Messiah concept.

Though Paul makes no attempt to anchor Christ in history, he did see him someway as Son of God,

'When the time had fully come, God send forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law'. (Gal 4:4) 85

This is much stronger expressed in Phil. 2:6-11 -

'though he was in the form of God',

however this Philippian text is seen by most scholars as 'a hymn', used in Post-Pauline time (Vermes: from post-Pauline origin). 86

In his 'prayers' Paul addressed the Father, though sometimes through the mediation of Christ Jesus, the Son. 88

And where John saw Jesus as the 'eternal divine Word' (1:1), for Paul he was the 'designated Son of God, in power, according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead'. (Rom 1:4) ib

About the term 'Lord', Paul used it, and saw Jesus as Lord, when he was referring to the oral tradition that went back to Jesus and which he had received, or when he talked about matters he had been told 'by the Lord'. The full meaning of the term is best expressed in his saying:

'If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord ... you will be saved' (Rom 10:9),

which he explained further when he said:

     'For this end, Christ died and lived again, the he might be Lord of both the dead and the living'. (Rom 14:9) But complex as Paul thinking is, that's not his final word. Elsewhere he says:

'There is only one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and through whom we exist'. (1 Cor. 8:6)

In Paul's post-Easter world, an 'universal instrumentality' is ascribed to Christ, while the 'universal causality' remains with the Father. ib

Paul and the death of Christ

Paul's conviction was, that he was 'liberated from sin, and in the love of God', because

    'Christ died, was raised from the dead and is at the right hand of God, interceding for us' (Rom 8:34).

This is Paul's perception, and is clearly not depending on what Jesus taught, or what can be found in the gospels.

In the gospels Jesus delivers a message to his followers, - in Paul's thinking Jesus is the object of the message, devised and propagated.

In Paul's vision of Jesus, he sees him 'negatively' as the deliverer from sin and death through the cross, and 'positively' as an agent of justification and rebirth through his resurrection from the dead. 91

Though Paul had no great difficulty in abandoning some Pharisee teachings, as the centrality of the strict observance of the Torah (circumcision, ritual laws, etc.), their doctrine of the bodily resurrection became an indispensable part of his teaching, as we will see. 92

Paul's understanding of the cross as a 'redeeming sacrifice' is based on the Jewish religious thought about Isaac's willingness to be sacrificed (Binding of Isaac, Akedah). That 'redeeming act of self-sacrifice' received in Jewish tradition permanent validity for 'all Jews' until the arrival of the Messiah.

Paul gave the 'redeeming sacrifice of Jesus' an 'universal effect', t.i., the salvation of all mankind. 93

The crucifixion of Christ is for Paul a 'mythical' event, which needs no explanation. Reason why he does not specify 'by whom', and 'for what reason' Jesus was killed. The focusing of 'Christ crucified' (1 Cor 1:22) is absolute:

    'I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Cor 2:2). 95

How did Paul apply the death of Christ to benefit mankind?

His belief is simple: ' Christ died for all sinners' (Rom 5:8), redeeming them and so potentially saving them. 95 'Personal faith' applies the merits of the redemption by Christ. Paul repeatedly stresses the personal, subjective aspect of faith (Gal 6:14, 2:20, Rom 6:6,8, 5:10).

'Death and resurrection, - liberation from sin and sharing the new life, - are facets of the same spiritual reality in Paul's thinking. And although at the end the glory of the resurrection outshines the dependency on the cross, the cross must precede it; the resurrection of Christ is seen as the necessary next step, and thus the vindication of his death. His rising from the dead symbolically disclosed his absolute triumph over the grave (Rom 6:9). 96

For Paul the resurrection of Jesus signified the availability of a spiritual renaissance for 'spiritually dead sinners'; their union with Christ's death inherit them a share in the new life. 97 And for Paul this was done by way of 'baptism', that initiation ceremony into the Christian mystery, a mystical union with the risen Lord.

A lot more could be said about matters such as the parousia, the return of the Lord and what it entailed, and Jesus as the Second Adam.

Let me conclude with these words of Vermes 116:

'The solid, carefully planned infrastructure, which the builders of the Pauline communities devised and put into practice, accounts without any doubt for the smooth development and enduring success of Paul's Gentile church in the Graeco-Roman world.

Divorced from Judaism, and even in a sense from the piety of Jesus, this well-organized institution, - dominated by the image of Paul's otherworldly Christ Redeemer, - in time blended with the more subtle and lofty johannine ideal of the 'divinization' of mankind.

This new religion soon disposed of what remained of Paul's and Jesus' eschatological enthusiasm, and evolved in the centuries that followed into a church run by bishops and councils to form the Christianity of late antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times.