The Christ Of Paul Part 1

The Christ Of Paul.

by George Reber.

CHAPTER I.

Death of Stephen.--Conversion of Paul.--His retirement to Arabia and return to Damascus and Jerusalem.

Let the reader imagine that he is in Jerusalem, in Judea, about the year A.D. 34. There is unusual tumult in the vicinity of the Temple. A large crowd has gathered, and, stirred up by some strong provocation, is swayed like the billows in a storm. As we approach, we see a young man, who is trying to raise his voice above the din. There is something very striking in his looks. He is pale, but firm. His eyes gleam with an unearthly light. As the crowd surges and threatens, he is calm. His thoughts and looks are directed more to Heaven than Earth.

But in this crowd there is a young man of an entirely different stamp.

He is excited and angry. His eyes are red with rage, and he is seen moving among the crowd like an incendiary. The crisis came, and poor Stephen stood first on the list of Christian martyrs. This little bleared-eyed, angry man is not yet satisfied. Like the tiger that has tasted blood, he thirsts for more. He goes about Jerusalem like a madman. He fills the prisons with men and women who believed with Stephen. When he had done all the injury he could in Jerusalem, he asked and received permission to go to Damascus on a like mission. On his way, while he is breathing out threatenings and slaughter, he is struck down in his mad career. He saw in it the hand of G.o.d. Everything is changed in a moment. The fiery stream of burning lava, which rushed in one direction, now turned and ran with equal violence the other way.

Philosophers may differ as to what befell Paul on his way to Damascus; but as for himself, he never doubted. The Christ that he persecuted had spoken to him. His faith in what he saw in his vision he bore in his bosom, as he did his heart; and in a life of toil, suffering, and sorrow, he clung to it to the end.

We can hardly tell what were the feelings of Paul when he awoke to consciousness, because we cannot judge him as we would other men. He had raised his hand against the Son of G.o.d, and now, after a severe reproof, he was appointed by him to be his special minister on earth. Paul did just what we might suppose he would. He withdrew from the world, avoided Jerusalem, and, as he says, went into Arabia. There, alone, he meditated over the wonderful scenes through which he had pa.s.sed. The more he thought, the more he believed he had talked with Christ, the Son of G.o.d, and the more he believed he had been selected to spread his Gospel throughout the earth.

Once convinced that his vision was a reality, it was natural for him to make himself believe that these visions were repeated; and through life, in all his acts and movements, he believed he was under the guidance of the same hand that smote him on the plains of Damascus. He goes from place to place as a Spirit from above directs him, and when he speaks he speaks not for himself, but for Him who sent him, Positive and overbearing by nature, he imagines himself to be the minister of the Son of G.o.d, and becomes intolerant, vain and exacting. All his ideas are crystallized, and will not bend or yield.

As he was specially selected to preach, he believed in the doctrine of election. When he believed at all, he believed too much; for it was his nature to overrun. He had witnessed Christ--others had not; but, in the absence of proof, they must subst.i.tute faith. Works are nothing--faith everything. What he saw and believed, others must believe without seeing.

His theology, from his natural temperament and the circ.u.mstances of his conversion, took an austere cast, which made the relation between man and the Creator that of guardian and ward. G.o.d himself, in the mind of Paul, is almost hideous. Some are given over to d.a.m.nation before they are born; while others are destined to be saved before they have had a chance to sin.

It is difficult to tell whether the religious faith of Paul was fully fixed and determined before he left his retreat in Arabia and returned to Damascus, or whether it was the growth of after experience and reflection. At some period of his life, and early too, he had settled in his mind the true relation which Christ bore to humanity. He had the best of reasons for his belief on that subject. He was in Jerusalem at a time when it was not impossible that Mary herself was living; and if not, he saw Peter and was with him fifteen days, when he had every opportunity to inform himself about the early history of Christ. Will any one say that Paul, with a mind awake to everything that related to Christ, would not inquire and find out all that was known about Him who had spoken to him from the clouds, when he was in Jerusalem, and could question those who had been his companions on this earth? If there was anything remarkable about his birth or death, Peter would have told it, and Paul would have repeated it all along the sh.o.r.es of the Archipelago, or wherever he went.

But Paul, from first to last, preached that Christ was born of woman, and was of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. Upon this point he yielded nothing, and stood to it to the death. Paul was a man of learning, and wrote with great power. Longinus cla.s.sed him among the great men of Greece. But in action and in deeds is where he went beyond all other men. Upon his shoulders, as he believed, was left the conversion of the world; and he had a will and energy equal to the task.

Believing that the Son of G.o.d stood at his side, as he performed the mission which had been a.s.signed him, he neither feared nor trembled, but stood up with a bold front in the presence of Festus and King Agrippa.

The unsparing cruelty of Nero had no terrors for him.

After Paul had remained in Arabia long enough to collect his thoughts, and determine the course he should pursue, he went back to Damascus.

At last he made up his mind to go to Jerusalem and see Peter. What must have been his feelings as he approached the holy city, and pa.s.sed along the place where he a.s.sisted, three years before, in the death of Stephen! Paul never forgave himself for the part he took in this murder.

Can we imagine with what feelings he approached Peter, or why he approached him at all? If he felt sad and grieved at the part he took in the death of Stephen, he did not feel as if he met Peter as his superior, for he conceded nothing to any of the Apostles. There was no point upon which he was more sensitive. Paul did not visit Peter to be taught and instructed as to his duties, nor to learn from him the great truths of Christianity; for he had learned all this from a higher source, and felt himself more able to give instruction than to receive it from others. Speaking of his doctrines, he says: "For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ" (_Galatians_ i. 12). Doubtless he came to learn from Peter everything he knew of the personal history of Christ. He had many questions to ask about his habits--mode of life--his employments--about Mary, Joseph, and the whole family of Jesus. The smallest incident in his early life would be dear to Paul, and he would lock the remembrance of it in his bosom, as a sacred treasure.

In this way fifteen days pa.s.sed over, when Paul again left Jerusalem, and afterwards went into Syria and Cilicia, where he was followed by divine visions and revelations. He spent the year A.D. 42 in Antioch, where he taught, a.s.sisted by Barnabas. Here he took up a collection for the brethren of Judea, who were suffering from the effects of a famine which took place during the reign of Claudius Caesar, and returned with it to Jerusalem. Having discharged his trust, he went back to Antioch, accompanied by Barnabas and Mark. All we know with certainty about Paul, from this time forward, we must gather, for the most part, from his Epistles to the churches; for all other sources of information are suspicious and doubtful. An act, especially one of importance connected with his labors as an Apostle, attributed to him by others, and not spoken of at all by himself, should be excluded from the pages of authentic history.

CHAPTER II.

Paul and Barnabas start west to preach the Gospel.--The prevailing ideas on religion in Asia Minor.--Theology of Plato and Philo.--The effect produced by the preaching of Paul.

Paul, in the year A.D. 45, with Barnabas and Mark as his companions, set his face west in the direction of Asia Minor. The people who inhabited the country from Antioch in Syria along the north coast of the Mediterranean and the aegean, or the Archipelago, to Thessalonica in Macedonia, were for the most part descendants of the early colonists from Greece. A large number of cities were scattered along the sh.o.r.es, which had been enriched by commerce, and were the seats of learning and luxury. The Greek of Asia Minor, in the latter part of the first century, was not the Greek of the time of Pericles and Epaminondas.

His levity and cunning had outlived his courage, his love of country and stern endurance. The college at Alexandria was the source of all light and learning, and the doctrines of that celebrated school, like a subtle fluid, pervaded all cla.s.ses of men. It was here that Plato took lessons which led him to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity, and expose to the eyes of mortals the nature of the divine persons who regulated the affairs of the universe. In his imagination he populated Heaven, and divided among the different deities the share of each in the government of the world. According to Plato there was one G.o.d who was superessential, and in him was blended or united all that was powerful and good. This he called the _One_, or the first principle of things.

Proculus, of the same school, says the _One_ is the G.o.d of all G.o.ds, the Unity of the unities, the Holy among the holies. Plato compares him with the sun. For as the sun by his light not only confers the power of being seen on visible objects, but is likewise the cause of their generation, nutriment, and increase, so the good of the One, through superessential light, imparts being and power. As a consequence, both Plato and Pythagoras conclude that the immediate issue of this ineffable Cause must be G.o.ds, and each must partake of the same nature and have a superessential existence. That "everything in nature which is the result of progression exists in a mysterious unity and similitude with its first cause. They are superessential, and differ in no respect from the highest good. From the supereminent Cause, as from an exalted place of survey, we may contemplate the divine unities, that is, the G.o.ds, flowing in admirable and ineffable order, and at the same time abiding in profound union with each other, and with their Cause."

The first procession, from the first One, or intelligible Cause, is the intelligible Triad, consisting of Being, Life, and Intellect, which are the three highest things after the first G.o.d. Plato, in his _Parmenides_, calls the Author of the Universe Intellect and Father, and represents him commanding the junior G.o.ds to imitate the power which he employed in their generation. It follows, that that which generated from the Father is offspring, Son or Logos, second in the Triad. The third power or principle in the Triad is Intellect, or Spirit of the Universe.

Here we have the Father, the Logos, and the Soul of the Universe in a mysterious union; and as they all proceed from the One, are one in unity. The author of "Decline and Fall" thus defines the theology of Plato: "The vain hope of extricating himself from these difficulties which must forever oppress the feeble powers of the human mind, might induce Plato to consider the divine nature under the threefold modification of the First Cause, the Reason or Logos and the Soul or Spirit of the Universe. His poetical imagination sometimes fixed and animated these metaphysical abstractions; the three archial or original principles were represented in the Platonic system as three G.o.ds, united with each other by a mysterious and ineffable generation; and the Logos was particularly considered, under the more accessible character of the Son of an Eternal Father, and the Creator and Governor of the world."

(Vol. I., page 438.)

Such is an outline of the theology of Plato, as we learn it from the "Explanatory translation" of Taylor to the _Cratylus_ and other works of the great light of Greece. The ideas of Plato, under the teachings of the Alexandrian school, underwent changes and modifications, but were the source of all subsequent systems of theology, and we can readily detect in each the genius of the Athenian. Through the invitation of the Ptolemies, large numbers of Jews settled in the new capital of Egypt, who carried with them the laws and inst.i.tutions of Moses. It was not many years before the religious ideas of the descendants of the colonists were tinctured and in some degree moulded after the doctrines taught at the school of Alexandria. Under the lead of Philo a new school arose, which was formed from a union of "Mosaic faith and Grecian philosophy," in which the distinctive features of each are clearly preserved.

Philo Judaeus was an Alexandrian Jew, descended from a n.o.ble and sacerdotal family, and was distinguished in his day for his wisdom and eloquence. He was born before Christ, and survived him. He was the author of numerous works, and esteemed one of the most learned men of his day. A tumult arose in Alexandria between the Jews and the Greeks, and out of each party three were chosen as emba.s.sadors to go to Rome and lay the case before Caligula, who was then emperor. Philo was chosen as one to represent his countrymen, and undertook to act as chief spokesman in the imperial presence. He was treated with insolence--ordered to be silent--and the emperor was so carried away by his pa.s.sions that personal violence seemed imminent. The equanimity of the philosopher was not disturbed, and having discharged his duty, he quitted the palace filled with the contempt for the tyrant which has loaded his memory in all subsequent ages. (Josephus, _Antiq_., lib. xviii. ch. 8, sec. I.)

The system taught by Philo dispensed with the third person in the G.o.dhead, which was composed of the Father and the _Logos_, a divine _Duad_, which did not exist in unity, like the trinity of Plato: but the Logos with him, like the Mediator of the Hebrews, was possessed of mediatorial powers, and was an intercessor in behalf of the fallen race of Adam. It is difficult to define the relation of the _Logos_ of Philo with the Creator of the Universe, whether he is an attribute which is made manifest in creative power, or whether he has a separate existence.

He is the Son of G.o.d, and was with the Father before the world was created. His powers embrace the mediatorial, and he stands between G.o.d and man, and represents the Father in his providences to our race. He is not an hypostasis, and yet he was begotten.

Such are some of the ideas which prevailed in Asia Minor, and other countries along the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, when Paul and Barnabas entered the country, bringing with them a new religion. It is as difficult to define what Paul's real belief was of the relations which Christ bore to the Creator, as it is to determine the real belief of Philo on the same subject. With Paul, Christ was the Son of G.o.d, but what was the exact relation he did not pretend to say. He says he is less than the angels--superior to Moses (Hebrews ii. and iii.); but he nowhere says he is equal to G.o.d. Paul seems to have been less concerned about the nature of Christ, and the place occupied by him in the G.o.dhead, than he was about his mediatorial powers. Through the fall of Adam, all men were under condemnation, and it was the office of Christ, through his blood, to make atonement, and once more restore man to the favor of the Creator. With him Christ was not the Creator, like the Logos of Philo, but was the Saviour of the world. He did not exist from the beginning, but, like all flesh, from his natural birth. But still he was, as was the _Logos_ of Philo, the Son of G.o.d.

With such ideas, Paul made his way among the Greeks. The Jews were the first to make war upon him. But he stood his ground and gained more. The small churches which he established were like so many fortresses in an enemy's country. Wherever he went he started discussion. The friction between the new and the old ideas produced heat: and with heat came light.

But, after all, Paul's converts, for the most part, were from the less informed and the middle cla.s.ses. The learned turned away from him, because he had no tangible proof to satisfy them that what he preached was true. The story of his conversion was improbable, and could be ascribed to the effects of natural causes.

The time for miracles had not yet come, and Paul did not claim anything from them.*

* Had it been true that an ap.r.o.n which came in contact with Paul's person could cure diseases, all Asia would have been converted while he was making a few hundred believers.

Tacitus speaks of Christians as a race of men detested for their evil practices, and cla.s.ses their doctrines among the pernicious things which flowed into Rome as into a common sewer. (_Annals_, lib. xv. sec 54.) Still the churches established by Paul grew slowly, but seemed to require the influence of his presence and personal efforts to keep them alive. As long as the fight went on between Paul and the Jews, and unconverted Gentiles, his lofty courage and iron will were enough to hold him up. But he soon had troubles of a different kind. He found them in the churches themselves. It is not difficult to tell what would be the effect of Paul's ideas when brought face to face with doctrines of the Alexandrian school. It was like the meeting of the acid and the alkali. The first sign of the effervescence appears at Corinth, and two hundred years pa.s.sed before it ceased, if it ceased at all. From the time the quarrel commenced at Corinth, between the followers of Paul, until the time when the questions disappear altogether, mental phenomena are exhibited unlike any other in the history of man. Even the quarrels and disputes of the Realists and Nominalists of the thirteenth century bear no comparison. The contest between the different sects had all the earnestness of a struggle between gladiators. From being warm disputants, men became dishonest. Books were forged entire, others were mutilated, and some suppressed and put out of sight. It was an age of downright dishonesty on all sides. But from these dark and discordant elements arose the true Church.

CHAPTER III.

Therapeutae of Philo--and Essenes of Josephus.--An account of them.--Their disappearance from history, and what became of them.

In the beginning of the first century there existed a sect or society which exercised great influence over the fortune and affairs of the world; but, before the second had elapsed, was insensibly lost in the commingling of creeds and sects which sprang up in the mean time. Like a billow on the sea, it rose high and spread far; but at last disappears, or is lost in the great ocean. We refer to the Therapeutae of Philo and the Essenes of Josephus. Their origin is lost in the distant past; nor is it proven who was the founder of the sect. Although the Therapeutae were found in every part of the Roman empire, Alexandria was the centre of their operations. Their learning and knowledge were derived from the schools of Alexandria; and to the climate of Egypt, which, by some immutable law of nature, disposed men to embrace a gloomy asceticism, they are indebted for their morose and cruel discipline. From this society were furnished all the monks which populated the deserts of Africa before the Christian era began.

The Essenes were one of the three leading sects among the Jews; the Sadducees and Pharisees forming the other two. Josephus, who fully describes them, in early life was a member, and for three years took up his abode in the desert, and suffered all the pains, and endured all the hards.h.i.+ps of monastic life. They were confined to no locality, but were found in every city in Europe and Asia. When travelling from place to place, they were received and provided for by members of their sect without charge, so that when one of them made his appearance in a strange city, he found there one already appointed for the special purpose of taking care of strangers and providing for their wants. They neither bought from nor sold to each other, but each took what his wants required, as if it were his own.

"And as for their piety towards G.o.d," says Josephus, "it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this, every one of them is sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour, after which they a.s.semble themselves together in one place, and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water, and, after their purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go after a pure manner into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly sit themselves down; upon which the baker lays their loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he has dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise G.o.d, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again until the evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner." (Josephus, _Wars_, lib. ii. chap. 8, sec. 5.)

The time allowed for probation, before admission to the fraternity, was three years, and in the meantime the temper and disposition of the neophyte were put to the severest test, and not until he had given ample proof of his sincerity or ability to submit to the laws and ordinances of the sect was he deemed fit for admission; but before he is allowed to do so, he is required to swear, "that, in the first place, he will exercise piety towards G.o.d; and then that he will observe justice towards men; and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked, and be a.s.sistant to the righteous; that he will ever show fidelity to all men, and especially to those in authority, because no one obtains the government without G.o.d's a.s.sistance; and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, nor endeavor to outs.h.i.+ne his subjects, either in his garments, or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; and that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal anything from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to others--no, not though any one should compel him so to do, at the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve their books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves." (Jos., _Wars_, lib. ii. ch. 8, sec. 6.)

The following is the account given by Philo of this sect, preserved in the pages of Eusebius:--

"'This kind of men is everywhere scattered over the world, for the Greeks and barbarians should share in so permanent a benefit. They abound, however, in Egypt, in each of its districts, and particularly Alexandria. But the princ.i.p.al men among them from every quarter emigrate to a place situated on a moderate elevation of land beyond the Lake Maria, very advantageously located both for safety and temperature of the air, as if it were the native country of the Therapeutae.'"

"After describing what kind of habitations they have, he says of the churches: 'In every house there is a sacred apartment which they call the Semneion or Monasterium, where, retired from men, they perform the mysteries of a pious life. Hither they bring nothing with them, neither drink nor food, nor anything else requisite to the necessities of the body; they only bring the law and the inspired declarations of the prophets, and hymns, and such things by which knowledge and piety may be augmented and perfected.' After other matters he adds: 'The whole time between the morning and the evening is a constant exercise; for as they are engaged with the sacred Scriptures, they reason and comment upon them, explaining the philosophy of their country in an allegorical manner. For they consider the verbal interpretation as signs indicative of a sacred sense communicated in obscure intimations. They have also commentaries of ancient men, who, as founders of the sect, have left many monuments of their doctrine in allegorical representations which they use as certain models, imitating the manner of the original inst.i.tution.'"

These facts appear to have been stated by a man who at least has paid attention to those that have expounded the sacred writings. But it is highly probable that the ancient commentaries which he says they have are the very Gospels and writings of the Apostles, and probably some expositions of the ancient prophets, such as are contained in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and many others of St. Paul's epistles.

Afterwards again, concerning the new psalms which they composed, he thus writes: 'Thus they not only pa.s.s their time in meditation, but compose songs and hymns unto G.o.d, noting them of necessity with measure uncommonly serious through every variety of metres and tunes.' Many other things concerning these persons, he writes in the same book....

Why need we add to these an account of their meetings, and the separate abodes of the men and the women in these meetings, and the exercises performed by them, which are still in vogue among us at the present day, and which, especially at the festival of our Saviour's pa.s.sion, we are accustomed to use in our fastings and watchings, and in the study of the divine word. All these the above-mentioned author has accurately described and stated in his writings, and they are the same customs that are observed by us alone at the present day, particularly the vigils of the great festival, and the exercises in them, and the hymns that are commonly recited among us. He states that whilst one sings gracefully with a certain measure, the others, listening in silence, join in singing the final clauses of the hymns; also, that on the above-mentioned days they lie on straw spread on the ground, and to use his own words, 'They abstain altogether from wine, and taste no flesh.

Water is their only drink, and the relish of their bread, salt and hyssop.' Besides this, he describes the grades of dignity among those who administer the ecclesiastical services committed to them, those of the _Deacons_ and the _Presidencies_ of the _Episcopate_ as the highest.

But, whosoever desires to have a more accurate knowledge of these things, may learn them from the history already cited; but that Philo, when he wrote these statements, had in view the first heralds of the gospel, and the original practices handed down from the Apostles, must be obvious to all. (Euseb. Ecc. Hist., lib. ii. ch. 17.)