Antichrist Paul
In the wake of some prominent philosophers converting to Christianity, I fail to understand why these, mostly bright, minds take Saul from Tarsus, or the self-appointed apostle Paul, as a valid source of theology and gospel. I can grasp why an average Christian would do so, but a person who should know better should know better. After all, Saul was no different from the billions of believers today, who listen to the story, eventually believe it, but still don’t hear.
Just consider, even few years before his death, Paul writes from captivity to the people of Philippi in what was to become one of his last letters: “I want to know Christ — yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.”
People who accept Pauline form of gospel (which, ironically, also includes all of the “heretic” sects such as Gnostics) mostly argue that it’s because the truth is revealed only on the “other side of the grave” by which they mean literal, physical death. Quite understandably, because that was part of Paul’s understanding, despite Jesus being pretty explicit and clear that kingdom of God is for most people at hand because it is already in your midst, within you, and that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.”
There are many instances where Paul directly contradicts Jesus’ message and perverts the gospel. Nonetheless, recently I came across a valid point that not all Pauline epistles are genuine. Therefore, the theology contained in the rest of his letters should be taken with a grain of salt, because genuine Paul is beyond reproach. So, I reread once more all of the epistles that are considered as authentic letters from Paul in a chronological order. It took me roughly one afternoon and the image that emerged, while ever so slightly shifting, was even more damning.
For starters, maybe one half, or at least one third, in other words a pretty substantial portion of the content is concerned with psychological blackmail regarding donations. It always goes roughly like this, and I paraphrase: “You know I don’t ask you for anything for I am content and have everything, but you really should send some gifts my way. Or do you think I don’t deserve compensation for toiling harder than anyone to bring my only true gospel of Christ to you for free and saving your depraved souls from Satan? And don’t forget, the more willing and generous you are, the more will be given to you, and God will bless you abundantly. Thanks in advance, I will send my assistant to collect your valuable contributions.”
In his own words: “If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you? If others have this right of support from you, shouldn’t we have it all the more? But we did not use this right. On the contrary, we put up with anything rather than hinder the gospel of Christ. Don’t you know that those who serve in the temple get their food from the temple, and that those who serve at the altar share in what is offered on the altar? In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel […]” adding that, “see that you also excel in this grace of giving. I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others.”
The pinnacle of this rhetoric is in the Epistle to Philemon where Paul asks one of his converts to accommodate his “son” Onesimus. Well, judge for yourself: “So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back — not to mention that you owe me your very self,” by which, I’d say, he means that it was Paul himself who preached and converted him, thus saving his very self, but the point would be the same even if Paul saved him from a den of lions. Frankly, who needs enemies, if they have friends like Paul.
I fail to see where Jesus said that, where he collected alms while preaching, and also — wasn’t Paul of the opinion that the law is dead? Suddenly, it’s convenient that “Lord commanded”? In any case, Paul was clearly of the opinion that leaders should be put on a pedestal, because he asks the congregation “to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. [To h]old them in the highest regard in love because of their work.” All of that in stark contrast to Jesus, who, when the mother of Zebedee’s sons came to ask him to grant them exclusive positions in kingdom of God, was explicit that, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you.”
Many apologists shrug this off and insist that, since Paul is also depicted as the one promoting communal cohesion, humility, love, and so on, firmly expressing that all are equal before God, this is a nonissue. But how does all encompassing love of every person because of their equality before God, independent of individual works, which Paul endlessly endorsed, square with “highest regard in love because of their work”? It simply makes no sense. Well it does, but only if I admit that the man was talking out of both sides of his mouth, depending on what suited him, which he also sort of admits, when he says, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible.” Quite a puzzling statement, as I would expect him to say that, if anything, he belongs to Christ or God.
Be as it may, at least Paul was most probably not sexist and considered men and women equal, exactly as Jesus did — no one is certain where that part about women being silent in the church comes from or where should it fit. But even if it’s a later interpolation and not Paul’s footnote, Paul demonstrably and beyond any doubt denounced homosexuality as Satan’s influence and sin, together with the actually sensible proclamations against greed, envy, incest, extramarital sex, and so on.
However, he was also of the opinion that a sinner should be cut off from community, excommunicated, or at least punished by the congregation. He insists that, “you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people.” And yet he publicly calls out Peter, and is pretty proud of how he roasts him and sticks it to the man, allegedly for Peter’s hypocrisy of eating with Gentiles but later pretending not to in order to not enrage Jews, who joined them during the meal. Talk about performative righteousness (and un-Christ-like treatment of sinners).
Well, Paul’s feud with (particularly) Peter, but also James and the rest of the apostles grew only more extreme during the time that followed. I’d say that it was rooted in the misguided way in which both camps understood, or rather misunderstood, Jesus, and also Paul’s enormous inferiority complex.
While original eleven plus Matthias, who was eligible to replace Judas as he, too, physically followed Jesus during his ministry (which Paul did not and so was not eligible to call himself an apostle), were of the opinion that Gentile converts should uphold the whole Pentateuch, Paul and his fraction preached that law (i.e. Pentateuch, etc.) is null and void, while extensively supporting his arguments by (many times incorrectly) quoting the allegedly abolished law. The law about which Jesus cleary said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish Law…” Huh. Okay. O_o
Now, even if Paul says that “those who were held in high esteem […] added nothing to my message […] James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along,” what happened was that, like foot soldiers of Jehovah Witnesses, who are allowed to preach gospel in the streets but are not theological authorities of the community, Paul was “certified” to go out to Gentiles and care for the poor.
Apostles clearly neither made him an apostle nor considered him on par with them in terms of final authority. Something which weighed heavily on Paul. So heavily in fact that few years later he was still obsessing about the issue and went on an unpleasant tirade against the men who physically walked with Jesus, defending his rights as an apostle and his ministry. (I won’t go into details, see both letters to Corinthians for yourself, particularly the second one).
Well, when people ask you, “What’s your authority?” it’s one thing to say, “I walked with Jesus when he walked on earth,” and quite another to say, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know — God knows. And I know that this man […] was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell. I will boast about a man like that […],” despite the fact that, as I said, the apostles were not one iota wiser when it came to the meaning of the Gospel.
And I won’t even go into details of Paul’s questionable theology, or how he claims that “you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel,” even though Jesus clearly said, “do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven,” as well as how he frequently swears by God, proverbially taking God’s name in vain.
Frankly, the whole situation is eerily similar to what you can observe even today when students of a genuinely enlightened master suddenly decide that they already arrived because they had some temporary mind-blowing experience. So, they start a sect, sell books with the one and only “true teaching” (which is almost always basically an utter bastardization of what they were told by their master), offer one-on-one consultations, collect donations, and/or similar. All the while still being merely at the very beginning of their journey, nevertheless, using the name of their master as a cloak of authority. What could go wrong, right?
Well, the history of Christianity painfully teaches us what.
Truly, Father forgive them…
