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In the section of Tom Lee's manuscript that we publish today, the focus is on how Paul came to focus on the Gentiles in his missionary endeavours and how this in turn led to the first major dispute that needed resolution through a Council of Elders of the embryonic Christian community. Tom Lee examines the decision of the first Council held at Jerusalem under James, the brother of Jesus…

Paul and his radical interpretation of the message of Jesus (cont'd)
Part 5.4
by Tom Lee

Mithras — the god of light…

The god of light Mithras, derived from Persian religion, became in the West a savior who died and rose again from the dead; the god of warriors and friend of kings; the god that ensured them victories, the invincible power worshipped by common soldiers and officers alike. The religion based largely on astrological principles, served as a kind of Masonic lodge of the warrior class, and progress through its degrees no doubt helped a soldier's progress through the military ranks as well. At the end of time, Mithras was expected to return to judge the human race.

Mithras — the god of warriors and friend of kings. At the end of time this god was expected to return to judge the human race.

Mithras was honored above all in Pontus whose kings took the name Mithridates, believing that their authority to rule was given by Mithras, who endowed them with the Divine Light which made them at one with, or an emanation of his own brightness, and therefore worthy to be worshipped with him. It became a most suitable faith for empire builders, and rulers who wished to claim absolute obedience, allegiance and loyalty from their armies. It was predominantly a religion of soldiers and the principal agent of its diffusion became the Roman legions, the only full-time professional army.

Paul lodged for some time with the refugee from Rome, fellow tent-maker, Aquila, born in Pontus, and it is permissible to assume that these two deeply religious men would have discussed from time to time the pagan religion that permeated both their birthplaces. It is likely too that Paul made many enquiries of his new friend about the position of Gentile members of the Roman Church who had been left to their own resources by the expulsion of their Jewish brethren. The opportunity of winning a foothold there must have been very attractive and his Epistle to the Romans was the result. Paul wrote to them that, "their faith was spoken of throughout the whole world," and that he had not visited them before because it was not his practice to "build on another man's foundation". It is not known whether he is referring to Peter, but it is extremely doubtful that he is.

Paul's letters — the only canonical record of Jesus' "hidden years"…

Paul's letters, written from the late 40s to early 60s of the first century, are the only canonical record we have of the "hidden years" between the life of Jesus and the emergence of the post-Jerusalem church. The Gospels and especially Luke's Acts of the Apostles, composed well after 80, seem to position the church as distinct from Judaism and cozy with Rome, outcomes Paul could neither have imagined or welcomed.

Although the Gospels as we know them were not yet written, there must have been a great deal of oral information available from people who had known Jesus, heard him and even lived with him. But nowhere in Paul's writings is there any mention of such material. He doesn't quote a single parable or a single word of Jesus' teaching, nor any of the stories about his miracles. Paul's interest in Jesus seems to have been solely in the mystical Christ whom he believed had appeared in his vision.

The Christians met together in house-synagogues, the whole community being designated as the Church. The Greek word ekklesia, to which we owe the word Church, and which for Greeks was employed to describe the assembly of citizens in ancient times, was already, before Christianity, used to translate the Hebrew kehillah in the Greek version of the Old Testament as relating to the body of the people of Israel, the Hebrew community, and this was undoubtedly how the early followers of Jesus regarded themselves. They, the believers in Jesus as Messiah, were the True People of Israel, the True Hebrew Community.

A new doctrine of the Church — a new understanding of what it meant to be "Church"…

But Paul elaborated a new doctrine of the Church as the body of which Christ in heaven was the invisible head. It was a striking conception, partly aimed, like much else, at establishing that his converts were totally released from allegiance to any visible head of the Church, the Council of the Apostles and Elders presided over by the living brother of Jesus. The modern Papacy would not have appealed to Paul, unless he could be Pope.

James, the brother of the Lord, did remain the head of the Church and special emissaries represented his views in distant communities. Christianity was essentially a product of Judaism, and it was primarily carried to the Gentiles by men who were by birth and upbringing Jews of a very zealous type. Their whole interpretation and presentation of the new faith was based on Jewish concepts and influenced by Jewish practice and outlook. Whatever their beliefs before conversion, Gentile Christians had to accept traditional Jewish theology, and were dominated in all essential matters of the faith by their Jewish brethren. Even for those converted by Paul and his companions there was a natural subservience to Jewish influence and scripture.

The Jewish Christians saw in the Passion and Death of Jesus merely the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy of the Suffering Servant of God, its only significance being a further proof of Jesus' Messiahship. But this interpretation of Jesus found no place in Paul's theology. Such a concept meant nothing to non-Jews, but savior gods who rescued the initiates of their mysteries from some dreaded fate, usually death, were familiar objects in the religious thought of the Graeco-Roman world. They did not return from the sleep of death to earthly, mortal life. They were transformed into a totally different state, an immortal life. In the Hellenistic religions there were many that were said to have risen, gods and saviors like Dionysus. These faiths began with myth, like the Old Testament, written in historical form. With Jesus it is the other way round.

The influence of Paul's earlier Greek environment and his own genius led him to see in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus a divine mystery of cosmic significance. The Death became for him not merely a judicial murder, but an event preordained before the foundation of the world, which in the wisdom of God had been effected, unwittingly to their cost, by the forces of darkness, the demonic powers. He blames neither the Jews nor the Romans.

Paul did not ascribe deity to Jesus. As a Jew he could not go as far as that. But the language he employed did allow it to be inferred by Gentiles that this was what he intended. Without question the Jesus Christ he proclaimed was ruler in the heavenly spheres, all Powers under God being subject to him. Among the pagans, salvation by identification with risen Saviors was an established teaching, as was the post mortem deification of kings and their ascension to heaven. Whatever may have been the extent of Paul's own conformity to Orthodox Judaism, the very principles of his gospel negated the Jewish claim to unique favor with God.

To represent the crucifixion as a saving mystery was considered by most Jews to be pandering to heathen notions such as those of the devotees of Dionysus, Adonis and Mithras. Paul's teaching gave an impression of Jesus that was previously unknown in the Church. It was endorsed, according to Paul, by the very nature of his conversion, which came, he said, as a direct revelation, totally independent of the Jerusalem community and authorities. But by calling Jesus the last Adam, in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul echoed the story of Adam's creation and disobedience. He established a strong link between the story of the beginning of mankind and the heart of the Christian story. It suggested a closing of the circle, a knitting-up of the raveled ends of human character that had come undone in the Garden of Eden.

Paul starts to generate opposition…

For the Elders at Jerusalem Paul had become the enemy of the Messiah of Israel. He was raised up by Satan to falsify the truth; one of the false prophets whom Jesus had given warning about. Holy war was declared and apostles from Jerusalem visited as many as possible of the Christian communities Paul had founded to set them straight. Satan was intensifying his assaults on Israel's adherents to cause them to forsake the Law, faithful obedience to which was the only means of redeeming the nation.

Faced with an attack on his authority, based on the importance of actual physical acquaintance with the historical Jesus, Paul repudiated the historical experience as an essential factor and consequently denied the authority of those who could claim to have known the living Jesus and to have heard his teachings directly from him. The eyewitnesses, in Paul's eyes, had become wolves circling his grazing lambs. On both sides there was a grinding of axes rather than a search for a unifying solution.

From both the Galatian and Corinthian Epistles it is clear that powerful adversaries were seriously challenging Paul's authority in his own churches, and as we saw at Antioch, Peter and Barnabus broke with Paul owing to the intervention of emissaries of James.

The vehemence of Paul's defense of his apostleship and his denunciations of his adversaries' teaching all point to the involvement of representatives of the Jerusalem Church, including Peter. They went among Paul's converts at Corinth, trying to undermine Paul's authority and doctrine and substitute their own. So effective were they that Paul's position in his own churches became untenable and he had to make a final personal appeal to the Jewish leaders to accept some rapprochement. To reinforce his case, he made a special effort to raise an impressive sum of alms and a delegation of supporters from the various churches to accompany him to the Mother Church, to try and impress the worth of his cooperation.

Arrived at Jerusalem, Paul was charged with disloyalty to Judaism and required to submit to a public test of his Jewish orthodoxy. If he refused he would merit excommunication. If he submitted, his position in the eyes of his Gentile followers would be gravely compromised, as he would be formally recognizing his subordination to the Jerusalem authorities. For Paul the dilemma was inescapable. In contradiction of his gospel of the sufficiency of faith in Christ, he had illogically continued to recognize the claims of Judaism on a Jew, and accordingly submitted to James's astute demand.

Paul's arrest while performing purificatory rites in the Temple must have been as disastrous to his cause as it was convenient to the leaders of the Jerusalem Church. He was almost certainly set-up. This was at the feast of Pentecost in June 58. Paul was recognized by some non-Christian Jews from Asia who attacked him and would have killed him had not the Roman guards from the Antonia fort intervened. The soldiers however arrested him on suspicion of being a self-styled prophet who had caused a demonstration on the Mount of Olives a short time before.

After an examination before the Sanhedrin, where he successfully stirred the ever-present antipathy between the Sadducees and Pharisees, the Roman authorities removed Paul to the safety of Caesarea, where governor Felix remanded him in custody. Although there was a subsequent hearing, Felix made no judgment and two years later, when Porcius Festus replaced Felix, Paul was still in custody. Questioned by Festus, Paul refused to be tried in Jerusalem. Asserting his Roman citizenship he appealed to Caesar, which was his right. The puzzled Festus then had Paul questioned before King Agrippa II in order to establish what he should write to Rome, as he knew next to nothing about the sects of Jewish religion.

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For a comprehensive index of each extract in this series go to: www.catholica.com.au/specials/first500-2/index.php
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Tom Lee is an Australian, now semi-retired in Phoenix, Arizona, who has had an illustrious international career as an actor, writer, and broadcast commentator. He does not claim to be a professional theologian, nor an historian, but he undertook this study because, like many of the people who are attracted to what we're doing here at Catholica Australia, he was simply inquisitive about the history of Christianity and trying to better understand what he had been brought up to believe. In a sense, his book is a one-man journey seeking to better understand who Jesus was and what his own faith was about.

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©2009 Tom Lee (Star Concepts LLC) 15633 N. 17* Drive, Phoenix, AZ 85023-3409

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