Meditations on the Letters of Paul. Herold Weiss
because rather than trying to use Paul to construct my version of the Gospel I am trying to come to terms with his Gospel, and that requires to chew slowly and carefully what he wrote in order to get to its core.
As I have pointed out elsewhere, writing is not quite a lonely affair, even if it requires a fair amount of personal concentration. As a writer, I always have with me my audience, even if only in my imagination. Traditionally, “meditations,” be they those of Marcus Aurelius or of Descartes, are attempts to express fundamental things not just for oneself, but with others in mind. The audience is what gives their writing a distinctive tone. Friends of mine have read these meditations as they were written and offered criticism, comments, suggestions and encouragement. At times they have suggested how to say something better, at others they have pointed out the implications or the consequences of my interpretation. I owe a great deal to my Saint Mary’s colleague, Terence Martin. He has been a long-standing friend and effective sound board through the years. His generous observations and suggestions have been most helpful in the writing of this book. Jean and Don Rhoads have again been most selfless with their time and effort to make sure that my writing was clear and in good English. Finally I must thank Henry Neufeld, my publisher, for his encouragement and support. This is the fourth book of mine he is publishing. I am most grateful for his enthusiasm for the project and the professionalism with which he has carried it forward.
The book is dedicated to Roland Loasby, the professor of Greek exegesis of the New Testament who opened my eyes to the advantage and the value of reading what the biblical authors wrote in the original language. All translations are, to a degree, interpretations, even when they aim to stay as close as possible to the original. The paraphrases that have appeared lately are nothing but interpretations with specific agendas. Following the example of professor Loasby, I have been meditating on Paul’s letters with others looking over my shoulders. I offer to them my meditations hoping they consider them invitations to study his letters again.
Introduction
Since the rise of modern biblical scholarship there has not been unanimity as to how to characterize Paul. He has been praised for having delivered Christianity from Judaism. Lately it has been argued that he remained so thoroughly a Jew that he was not a Christian at all. Others think he became a Christian because he had become a totally frustrated Pharisee by his failure to observe the law of Moses. Some consider him to have been a male chauvinist with few redeeming qualities. Others see in him a messianist with masochistic tendencies. Some think he was a conceited authoritarian who had no patience with the views of others. For a time it was popular to see him as a mystic who wished to lose himself by being in Christ. It has been said that, as one concerned with the life of the Spirit, he saw reason as the enemy of faith and required his converts to sacrifice the intellect on the altar of submission to authority. All these are, at least in part, reactions against the prevailing picture of him as the one who laid the foundation for the doctrines of righteousness by faith and the God of grace on which the Protestant Reformation was built.
Friedrich Nietzsche considered Paul an ambitious and cunning authoritarian with delusions of grandeur and a lust for power, a very unpleasant and insecure man due to his anxiety as to how best to keep the Jewish law. He had come to see the law as the cross “to which he felt himself nailed.” According to him, by becoming Christian, thanks to the apostleship of Paul, the radiant and healthy Greek culture of Apollo and Dionysus was subverted and almost lost, much to the detriment of Western culture.
As early as the Middle Ages Paul was seen as one who denied the life of the senses, especially what had to do with sexuality. He was paraded as the model celibate, an other-worldly idealist. Back then his other-worldliness and denial of the life of the senses was considered positively. Today these attributes are counted against him. It is somewhat of a surprise to find that one of the Church Fathers of the second century saw him as the apostle of the heretics. Still, even those who highlight negative aspects of his ministry find it impossible to dismiss him all together. He was, no doubt, a powerful personality who incited strong reactions during his lifetime and ever since.
Today most scholars would say that Paul was not a doctrinal builder. It has also become more difficult to see him as a mystic who wished to escape from the troubles and conflicts of life in this world. My reading of Paul tells me that he was very much in touch with the human reality, and understood that faith and reason are inseparable faculties of the healthy Christian. My meditations on his letters tell me that he was very much a Jew of the first century, fully conversant with Hellenistic culture and totally committed to faith in the God of his fathers.
As one wishing to understand the thought of the apostle Paul, my first task must be to consider the evidence now available for determining the sources of his thought. It is quite legitimate to take for granted the traditional assignments of authorship and to read Paul’s letters for devotional purposes. It is possible to write a systematic presentation of the canonical Paul by extracting elements from all the letters ascribed to him according to the traditional rubrics of systematic theology. Such volumes quite often say more about their authors than about Paul. If, on the other hand, one’s purpose is to come to terms with Paul’s Gospel in his own time and culture and evaluate his role as a participant in the formation of what eventually became Christianity, then one must do a thorough analysis of the letters traditionally considered his and come to some conclusions concerning their authorship.
The New Testament canon contains thirteen letters which claim to have been written by Paul and one that has traditionally been ascribed to him. With the rise of modern literary and historical criticism, the authorship of these letters has come under scrutiny, and the Pauline authorship of some of them has been denied by many scholars. Today every student of Paul agrees that Paul wrote seven letters. These are: To the Romans, To the Corinthians I, To the Corinthians II, To the Galatians, To the Philippians, To the Thessalonians I and To Philemon. The Pauline authorship of the other seven is defended by some scholars and denied by others. Each one of these, of course, is considered separately and judged differently as to its claims to Pauline authorship.
Already by the time of the Renaissance the Pauline authorship of To the Hebrews, which does not claim to have been written by Paul, was being questioned by biblical students. Today most scholars do not think that Paul wrote it. The evidence against its Pauline authorship is overwhelming, both in terms of style and of content. In terms of style, its Greek is, together with that of Luke and Acts, the most stylish of the New Testament, a much higher literary Greek than that of the letters of Paul. Its rhetorical format, as an extended exhortation to Christians who seem to be getting tired of the demands the gospel makes on them, and are discouraged by their failings along the way, indicates that it does not belong to the early stages of the Christian mission. In terms of content, its vocabulary is quite distinct. It is preoccupied with the question of repentance, which is not a Pauline issue, and looks at sin primarily in cultic terms. Most significantly, its cosmology is cast in a Stoic symbolic universe, rather than the Platonic one found in Paul.
After To the Hebrews the letter To the Ephesians is probably the one whose Pauline authorship is denied by most scholars. Again, it is a matter of its style and content. Both argue for its belonging to the latter part of the first century. It has been said that in the letters of Paul the arguments move like a mountain brook, jumping and bubbling in a rapid flow. By contrast, in Ephesians the presentation moves ponderously and slowly like a river in a plain. The sentences are extremely long with numerous dependent clauses and repetitive grandeur. It represents the beginnings of liturgical pomposity.
The content of To the Ephesians also differs significantly with that of Paul’s writings. Rather than to have the future Parousia (the public appearance of an enthroned Christ) as its focus, it is satisfied with life within the church built on the foundation of the apostles. Paul would never agree to a foundation other than Christ. For him, the apostles are only slaves of Christ. The purpose of the letter is to promote church unity. Thus, it evinces the transition of Christianity from a movement to an ecclesiastical phenomenon.
The Pastoral Epistles, To Timothy I, To Timothy II and To Titus, also belong to the same period and represent the beginnings of an ecclesiastical institution with hierarchical officials. Even if their style is more like that of Paul, the content deals with situations quite unknown at the time of Paul. In Paul’s time, Christianity was not