Pauline Christianity

Template:Short description Template:Distinguish Template:Paul Template:Bible related

Artist depiction of Saint Paul Writing His Epistles, 16th century (Blaffer Foundation Collection, Houston, Texas). Most scholars think Paul actually dictated his letters to a secretary.<ref>Harris, Stephen L., Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985. pp. 316–320. Harris cites Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse, Template:Bibleverse. Joseph Barber Lightfoot in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians writes: "At this point [[[:Template:Bibleverse]]] the apostle takes the pen from his amanuensis, and the concluding paragraph is written with his own hand. From the time when letters began to be forged in his name (Template:Bibleverse; Template:Bibleverse) it seems to have been his practice to close with a few words in his own handwriting, as a precaution against such forgeries... In the present case he writes a whole paragraph, summing up the main lessons of the epistle in terse, eager, disjointed sentences. He writes it, too, in large, bold characters (Gr. pelikois grammasin), that his handwriting may reflect the energy and determination of his soul."</ref>

Pauline Christianity or Pauline theology (also Paulism or Paulanity),Template:Sfn otherwise referred to as Gentile Christianity,<ref name="Klutz 2002">Template:Cite book</ref> is the theology and form of Christianity which developed from the beliefs and doctrines espoused by the Hellenistic-Jewish Apostle Paul through his writings and those New Testament writings traditionally attributed to him. Paul's beliefs had some overlap with Jewish Christianity, but they deviated from this Jewish Christianity in their emphasis on inclusion of the Gentiles into God's New Covenant and in his rejection of circumcision as an unnecessary token of upholding the Mosaic Law.<ref name="Klutz 2002"/><ref name="Thiessen 2014">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Seifrid 1992">Template:Cite book</ref>

Proto-orthodox Christianity, which is rooted in the first centuries of the history of Christianity, relies heavily on Pauline theology and beliefs and considers them to be amplifications and explanations of the teachings of Jesus. Since the 18th century, a number of scholars have proposed that Paul's writings contain teachings that are different from the original teachings of Jesus and those of the earliest Jewish Christians, as documented in the canonical gospels, early Acts, and the rest of the New Testament, such as the Epistle of James, <ref>Tabor, James D., Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed ChristianityTemplate:Publisher missing Template:Full citation needed</ref> though there has been increasing acceptance of Paul as a fundamentally Jewish figure in line with the original disciples in Jerusalem over past misinterpretations, manifested though movements like "Paul Within Judaism".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn

Definition and etymologyEdit

DefinitionEdit

Pauline Christianity or Pauline theology, also called "Paulism" or "Paulanity",Template:Sfn is the theology and Christianity which developed from the beliefs and doctrines espoused by Paul the Apostle through his writings. Paul's beliefs were strongly rooted in the earliest Jewish Christianity, but they deviated from this Jewish Christianity in their emphasis on inclusion of the Gentiles into God's New Covenant and in his rejection of circumcision as an unnecessary token of upholding the Law.

EtymologyEdit

According to Hans Lietzmann, the term "Pauline Christianity" first came into use in the 20th century among scholars who proposed different strands of thought within Early Christianity, wherein Paul was a powerful influence.<ref>Lietzmann, Hans, History of the Early Church Vol. 1 p. 206</ref>

Marxist writer Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), who stressed the similarities between Primitive Christianity and Marxism, used the phrase 'Christo-Paulinism' not only to indicate Paul's greater importance but also to distinguish between theological and ideological beliefs and the organization of the institutional Church.<ref>James Leslie Houlden, Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia, Volume 1, ABC–CLIO, 2003, p. 595</ref>

The expression is also used by modern Christian scholars, such as John Ziesler<ref>Ziesler John, Pauline Christianity (OUP 2001) Zielsler comments "Pauline Christianity is the earliest for which we have direct documentary evidence..."</ref> and Christopher Mount,<ref>Mount, Christopher, Pauline Christianity – Luke, Acts and the Legacy of Paul, Brill, 2002</ref> whose interest is in the recovery of Christian origins, and the importance of Paul for paleo-orthodoxy, Christian reconstructionism and restorationism.

Paul and the inclusion of GentilesEdit

Template:See also The first Christians were Jews.Template:Sfn According to Paul and the author of the Acts of the Apostles, he initially persecuted those early Christians, but then converted, and, years later, was called to proselytise among Gentiles.

Inclusion of GentilesEdit

An early creed about Jesus' death and resurrection which Paul probably used was 1 Corinthians 15, verses 3–5 (plus possible additional verses). Probably originating from the Jerusalem apostolic community, the antiquity of the creed has been noted by many biblical scholars:<ref>see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man translated Lewis Wilkins and Duane Pribe (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968) p. 90; Oscar Cullmann, The Early church: Studies in Early Christian History and Theology, ed. A. J. B. Higgins (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966) p. 66; R. E. Brown, The Virginal Conception and Bodily Resurrection of Jesus (New York: Paulist Press, 1973) p. 81; Thomas Sheehan, First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity (New York: Random House, 1986) pp. 110, 118; Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection translated A. M. Stewart (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew, 1977) p. 2; Hans Grass, Ostergeschen und Osterberichte, Second Edition (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1962) p. 96; Grass favors the origin in Damascus.</ref>

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve,...{{#if:|{{#if:|}}
— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries
}}

{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Blockquote with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | author | by | char | character | cite | class | content | multiline | personquoted | publication | quote | quotesource | quotetext | sign | source | style | text | title | ts }}

There has been widespread acknowledgement of the view of W. D. Davies that the essential Jewishness of Paul's Christian perspective has been underplayed.Template:Citation needed In Davies' view, Paul replaced the Torah, the Jewish law or Law of Moses, with Christ.{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Fix }}.

In the view of Daniel Boyarin, Paula Fredriksen and other notable NT scholars cited by them, writing with lived experience of the Jewish context, Paul did not replace Torah or Halakha with Christ for Jewish believers, but simply taught gentiles that observing the noachide covenant as righteous among the nations was sufficient (along with faith in Christ), to merit a share in the world to come. This was a view shared by the Pharisees and taught in the Talmud and Maimonides (with the exception of the element of faith in Christ), but denied by (mostly gentile born) Judaizers who taught conversion to Judaism as a requisite for salvation.Template:Citation needed For example, his epistle to the Romans 13 teaches the obligations of a righteous gentile under the Noachide covenant, with Romans 14-15 expansive commentary on dietary ethics.

According to Christopher Rowland, "the problems with which he wrestles in his letters were probably typical of many which were facing the Christian sect during this period".Template:Sfn

According to Krister Stendahl, the main concern of Paul's writings on Jesus' role, and salvation by faith, is the problem of the inclusion of gentile (Greek) Torah observers into God's covenant.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Template:Sfn<ref name="Westerholm.2015" group="web">Stephen Westerholm (2015), The New Perspective on Paul in Review, Direction, Spring 2015 · Vol. 44 No. 1 · pp. 4–15</ref> The inclusion of Gentiles into early Christianity posed a problem for the Jewish identity of the early Christians. Many of the Jewish Christians were fully faithful religious Jews, only differing in their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. Observance of the Jewish commands, including circumcision, was regarded as a token of the membership of this covenant, and the early Jewish Christians insisted on keeping those observances.Template:Sfn The new converts did not follow all "Jewish Law" and refused to be circumcised,Template:Sfn as circumcision was considered repulsive during the period of Hellenization of the Eastern Mediterranean.<ref group="web">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Paul objected strongly to the insistence on keeping all of the Jewish commandments, considering it a great threat to his doctrine of salvation through faith in Jesus.Template:Sfn For Paul, Jesus' death and resurrection solved this problem of the exclusion of the gentiles from God's covenant.Template:Sfn 'Dying for our sins' refers to the problem of gentile Torah-observers, who, despite their faithfulness, cannot fully observe commandments, including circumcision, and are therefore 'sinners', excluded from God's covenant.Template:Sfn Jesus' death and resurrection solved this problem of the exclusion of the gentiles from God's covenant, as indicated by Rom 3:21-26.Template:Sfn

Paul insists that salvation is received by the grace of God; according to Sanders, this insistence is in line with Judaism of Template:Circa until 200 CE, which saw God's covenant with Israel as an act of grace of God. Observance of the Law is needed to maintain the covenant, but the covenant is not earned by observing the Law, but by the grace of God.<ref name="Cooper.2014" group="web">Jordan Cooper, E.P. Sanders and the New Perspective on Paul</ref>

Split with Jewish ChristianityEdit

Template:See also There was a slowly growing schism between Christians and Jews, rather than a sudden split. Even though it is commonly thought that Paul established a Gentile church, it took centuries for a complete break to manifest.Template:Sfn

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyon, wrote in the latter half of the 2nd century that the Ebionites rejected Paul as an apostate from the law, using only a version of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, known as the Gospel of the Ebionites.

InfluenceEdit

Template:UnbalancedPaul had a strong influence on early Christianity, transmuting Jesus the Jewish messiah into the universalTemplate:NoteTag savior. This thesis is founded on differences between the views of Paul and the earliest Jewish Christianity, and also between the picture of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles and his own writings. In this view, Paul is to be taken as pro-Hellenization or Romanization.

Scholarly viewsEdit

Template:See also

There are considerable differences of scholarly opinion concerning how far Paul did in fact influence Christian doctrine.Template:NoteTag

According to the 19th-century German theologian and Hegelian philosopher Ferdinand Christian Baur, founder of the Tübingen school whose view was widely influential, Paul was utterly opposed to the disciples, based upon his view that Acts was late and unreliable and who contended that Catholic Christianity was a synthesis of the views of Paul and the Judaizing church in Jerusalem.<ref>Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi (Eng trans. 1873–5)</ref> Since Adolf von Harnack, the Tübingen position has been generally abandoned.<ref>The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church ed. F. L. Cross</ref>Template:Page needed

Ultradispensationalists such as E. W. Bullinger viewed the distinction abhorred by the Ebionites as positive and essential doctrine.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Clarify

Pauline Christianity was essentially based on Rome and made use of the administrative skills which Rome had honed. Its system of organization with a single bishop for each town was, in Bart Ehrman's view, the means by which it obtained its hegemony.<ref>Ehrman, Bart: Lost Christianities (OUP) p 175</ref>

Michael Goulder wrote widely on a theory of Christian origins that sees a fundamental opposition between Paul the Apostle on one side and the Jerusalem Christians Peter and James, Jesus' brother, on the other.<ref>See, for example, St. Paul versus St. Peter: A Tale of Two Missions (London: SCM, 1994) and Paul and the Competing Mission in Corinth (Library of Pauline Studies; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001).</ref> This has been seen as reviving Baur's hypothesis.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

DistortionEdit

Some literary critics of Christianity argue that Paul distorted the original and true doctrine, or claim that Christianity is largely his invention. The former include such secular commentators<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> as the philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell. Nietzsche's criticisms are based upon his moral objections to Paul's thought. Other writers, such as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou, also agree with this interpretation, but hold much more positive opinions about Paul's theological influence.Template:Citation needed

Christian anarchists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Ammon Hennacy, believe Paul distorted Jesus' teachings. Tolstoy claims Paul was instrumental in the church's "deviation" from Jesus' teaching and practices,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> while Hennacy believed "Paul spoiled the message of Christ."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Criticism of the "Pauline Christianity" thesisEdit

Christians themselves disagree as to how far there was tension between Paul and the Jerusalem Church. Roman Catholics, Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, and conservative Protestants, contend that Paul's writings were a legitimate interpretation of the Gospel. The idea that Paul invented Christianity is disputed by numerous Christian writers.<ref>David Wenham, "Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity?"</ref><ref>L. Michael White, "From Jesus to Christianity"</ref><ref>F. F. Bruce, "Paul & Jesus"</ref><ref>Machen, J. Gresham. "The Origin of Paul's Religion"</ref>

According to Christopher Rowland, Pauline Christianity is the development of thinking about Jesus in a gentile missionary context. Rowland contends that "the extent of his influence on Christian thought has been overestimated",Template:Sfn concluding that Paul did not materially alter Jesus' teachings.

Hurtado notes that Paul regarded his Christological views and the Jerusalem Church's as essentially similar. According to Hurtado, this "work[s] against the claims by some scholars that Pauline Christianity represents a sharp departure from the religiousness of Judean 'Jesus movements'."Template:Sfn

As a pejorative termEdit

The pejorative use of the expressions "Pauline Christianity", "Paulism," or "Paulanity," refers to the idea that Paul's supporters, as a distinct group, had an undue influence on the formation of the canon of scripture.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is also sometimes used to refer to the notion that certain bishops, especially the Bishop of Rome, influenced the debates which determined the dogma of early Christianity, thus elevating a Pauline interpretation of the Gospel, to the detriment of other interpretations (including those held by the Gnostics and Marcionites).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>