Christian
Mysteries - Unveiled
THE APOSTLE PAUL -
BEFORE The Canon
Gospels
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St. Paul, who indeed can be called the
actual founder ofthe Christian Church, was probably born around 10 A.D. and lived until 63-65 A.D. Eminent scholars
and even the Church historians believe that not all of the 13 letters/ epistles
ascribed to Paul are his own writings; some wholly and some partly- to being
fake and later additions specially in the the case of Galatians, Ephesians, I
and II Timothy, and Titus.
Moreover, Paul's epistles generally contain Hellenistic
concepts and allegorical sentiments of a Gnostic theology. His oldest letters were probably in circulation from
49-60A.D., that is before the Mark's Gospel, which is originated sometime
around 70 A.D. to be followed by Mathew's, Luke's (both of whom copy almost
all-out from Mark) and John's - all latest by 150 A.D.
Many would be
surprised to learn for the first time that Paul does not mention in any of his
letters about the important events surrounding the historical birth of Jesus at
Bethlehem, the visit of Magis, Herod's massacre of the infants, about John the Baptist, Jesus' temptation,
his sermons, parables, miracles, trial and crucifixion between two the
thieves. He does not even mention the
Lord's Prayer as Jesus taught to is disciples.
In the Book of Acts, Paul meets with only Peter and James at the Jerusalem church and none of the
other disciples, even Joseph and Mary, nor
does he make any attempts to do so any time later.
All of these
simply because the figure of the historical Jesus, his supernatural birth,
earthly mission and death by crucifixion was yet to be conceptualized through
bits and pieces of floating fragmentary manuscripts, often contradictory, which
upon compilation and final editing subsequently came to known as the four canon
gospels.
From the
ancient writings of the Church, it comes to light that the Early Church Father,
Chrysostam (397) had a hand in introducing some of the writings of Apollonius
of Tyana after re-working on them as the Epistles of Paul.
As is also
obvious, the name Paul is from Latin Paulus for Apollonius. Paul is said to have had a companion by the
name of Demis. (2 Tim. 4:10). So did
Apollonius, a similar namesake, Damis.
Apollonius of Tyana: He was a famous philosopher and
social reformer born in the Græco-Roman world sometime in the first century
A.D. in a city south of Cappadocia
called Tyana. He studied at Tarsus,
(incidentally, Paul's birthplace) well-known at the time as a center of
learning, from the age of fourteen years. Besides his preference for and
excelling in the Pythagorean concepts of
theology, he studied with teachers of Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic and
Epicurean schools of philosophy.
Historians
and scholars have since noticed the similarities of Jesus and Paul with
Apollonius. All three were said to be
celibate. The generally accepted Nazarene appearance (beard and long hair) of
Jesus was like-wise that of Apollonius.
Apollonius studied in Tarsus, city of Paul’s birth. Apollonius also taught to priests, preached
to the people at large at shrines and temples, healed people, exorcised demons
and brought back dead people to life. These very same things were supposedly
taking place during the same lifetime of Jesus and Paul.
Outside of
the Canon Gospels, there is no historicity of Jesus (except for a few lines or
a paragraph interpolated into the pages of some books of well-known historians
or writers of later times) or that of Paul. Apollonius, on the other hand, is mentioned both in the
state-records of the Roman Emperors as
well as other secular historical writings. That the Church Father Chrysostom used the model of Apollonius life and teachings to compose some parts of the
Epistles of Paul lends credibility to after the fact.
Historical Paul: Most of what we know about Paul, his life and teachings, comes from the
Book of Acts by Luke and the Epistles ascribed to Paul. But outside the New
Testament, what do historians, scholars and even Archaeologists, who have
researched and studied in-depth the world religions including Christianity of
that period, have to say about Paul’s life and teachings?
Hyam Maccoby
in his book, The Mythmaker Paul, writes about the deviation of Paul’s doctrine
from Judaism and the influence of paganism in Pauline Christianity, as
follows:
"So
Paul's claim to expert Pharisee learning is relevant to a very important and
central issue--whether Christianity, in the form given to it by Paul, is really
continuous with Judaism or whether it is a new doctrine, having no roots in
Judaism, but deriving, in so far as it has an historical background, from pagan
myths of dying and resurrected gods and Gnostic myths of heaven-descended
redeemers. Did Paul truly stand in the Jewish tradition, or was he a person of
basically Hellenistic religious type, but seeking to give a coloring of Judaism
to a salvation cult that was really opposed to everything that Judaism stood
for?" (Hyam Maccoby, The Mythmaker Paul and the Invention of Christianity,
Harper & Row, "1987" Pb. (c1986), 204. ).
We cannot
ignore the following statement, with a reference being made to the Early Church Father, Tertullian (160-230 A.D), who
clearly doubted the very existence of Paul and declared his writings as works
of fiction:
"We can
find no proof of his [Paul] historic reality. The 'Acts of Paul and Thecla,'
which contain a sketch of his personal appearance, are declared by Tertullian
to be the work of an Asian presbyter and a fiction. Tertullian himself, while
expressing the most audacious doubts as to Paul, turns the writings ascribed to
him to the account of Catholicism, and endeavour[s] to force the Paul of the
'Acts of the Apostles' [Fiction!] upon his contemporaries "
"And it
is still a question whether 'Paul,' that figure which suddenly starts up in
Gnostic company at the middle of the second century more 'hebraises,' or more
'hellenises,' or whether so-called 'Paulinism' be not a heterogeneous mixture
of conservatism and innovation; whether the current portraits of this latest
'apostle' do not present variations irreconcilable with the hypothesis of a
historic individual" (Edwin Johnson 1842-190, Antiqua Mater: A Study of
Christian Origins.
Another
pre-Nicene Apostolic Father, was Justin Martyr (100 - 165A.D.) whose life-time
of writings are completely silent about Paul or this ministry: "His silence about Paul, when he had
every reason to cite him in his anti-Judaistic reasonings, is a silence that
speaks -- a void that no iteration of unattested statements, no nebulous
declamation, can ever fill " (Ibid.).
Here we see
the influence of Gnosticism in Paul’s doctrine - a later adaptation by the
Church: "The only reasonable
conclusion is that, since Paul was the great Gnostic spokesman more than fifty
years before his writings became orthodox, these were revised and expanded by a
process of Catholic forgery" (Ibid., 438).
Historians
record that until the first century, only the few epistles of Paul as compiled
by Marcion (100-165 A.D.) were around and these too fell short of the many
other passages added later into the canonical gospels. Marcion of Sinope, a
christian theologian and an ex-bishop, discarded the Old Testament and upheld
only some of Paul’s epistles, also dismissing the historical Jesus for a
spiritual form. Marcion
wrote the first canon of the New Testament in AD 140.
Though, he
was ex-communicated by the Church in A.D.. 144, many of his theologies were afterwards covertly
integrated into doctrines of the Church.
"Marcion
accepted only ten Pauline epistles and that his version did not contain many of
the passages found in our canonical. There can be no reasonable doubt that this
was the actual corpus of Pauline literature as it existed late in the first
century" (Ibid., 529).
That the
travel-routes of the missionary Paul being similar to the ones featuring the
characters in Xenophon’s Ephesian Tale, we read in The Novel of Antiquity by
Tomas Hägg:
"A map
of the Mediterranean region showing the routes of the hero and heroine of a novel
inevitably brings to mind the school-bible's map of the travels of St. Paul.
Here Xenophon's Ephesian Tale is mapped" (Tomas Hägg, The Novel in
Antiquity, U. California, 1983 (1980 Sweden), map [end papers].
Concerning
the authoritative style of Paul’s demands, obedience and of his subduing
critics, this manner of Paul is seen as a reflection of the Church’s attitude
in laying its autocratic style of
functioning and churning out edicts.
"In the name of that Lord Paul demands
unity and obedience. He is to be seen subduing critics, subjecting the faithful
to his unsolicited censure, and giving firm rulings to their most intimate
queries. It is a style that the officials of the Vatican can rightly claim as
their own. " [which it (was) is!] (Graham Shaw, Chaplain of Exeter
College, Oxford, The Cost of Authority Manipulation and Freedom in the New
Testament, SCM, 1983, 62).
Following the
theological meet at the Jesus Seminar and its findings about Paul showing his
ignorance of the historical Jesus, his earthly ministry and, in reality, he
being influenced by the pagan, Gnostic mysteries of his day, on which theology
the later gospel writings also relied upon and propagated accordingly, the Authors had this to state:
"The
figure in this creed ["Apostles' Creed"] is a mythical or heavenly
figure, whose connection with the sage from Nazareth is limited to his
suffering and death under Pontius Pilate. Nothing between his birth and death
appears to be essential to his mission or to the faith of the church. Accordingly,
the gospels may be understood as corrections of this creedal imbalance, which
was undoubtedly derived from the view espoused by the apostle Paul, who did not
know the historical Jesus. For Paul, the Christ was to be understood as a
dying/rising lord, symbolized in baptism (buried with him, raised with him), of
the type he knew from the Hellenistic mystery religions. In Paul's theological
scheme, Jesus the man played no essential role" (The Five Gospels The
Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, Robert Funk, Roy Hoover, The Jesus
Seminar, Macmillan, 1993, 7).
Paul’s
concept of Jesus and his Pauline doctrine was the result of his visions and
spiritual experiences of Christ from whence originated the source of all his
knowledge, enough for Paul to preach his own gospel accordingly.
"Paul
derived this narrative of the last supper, not from companions of Jesus, but as
one of the private revelations [sic] to which he was liable. It rests,
therefore, on no basis of fact, but, like much of Paul's conception of Jesus,
is partly, or wholly, an a priori construction of his own mind." (Frederick
Cornwallis Conybeare, The Origins of Christianity, University Books, 1958 (1910
rev.) (1909), 251).
Contrary to
Paul self-acclaiming that he was an expert in all aspects of Judaism, eminent
Talmudic scholar, Kohler, considers otherwise: "Kaufmann Kohler...the distinguished Talmudic scholar and editor of
the Jewish Encyclopaedia, wrote in 1902 that 'nothing in Paul's writings showed
that he had any acquaintance with rabbinical learning' -- a judgement with
which I entirely concur" (Hyam Maccoby, The Mythmaker Paul and the
Invention of Christianity, Harper & Row, "1987" Pb. (c1986),
204.).
Paul defended
that what he preached was the correct message of Christ. That the Apostles had
misunderstood Jesus’ message and it was therefore revealed to him personally by
Christ himself to put right what the Apostles taught incorrectly.
"Marcion,
unlike some Gnostic, relied more on biblical materials than on Greek
philosophy. In particular, he emphasized Paul's teachings (Marcion's version),
asserting that the original twelve apostles had misunderstood Christ's message
by thinking him to be the messiah prophesied by the Old Testament rather than
understanding him to be sent by the true God. Because of this misunderstanding,
it was therefore necessary for Paul to receive a special revelation to correct
it. " (Chas S. Clifton, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, 1992, 91).
The forgeries
of Paul’s writings can be seen as also resulting from similar theological
interests and close association of the Apostolic fathers with pagan
philosophers.
"It is
curious and perhaps significant that the two pagans whom the Church took most
warmly to its bosom were Vergil and Seneca. Seneca is commended highly by the
Latin Fathers and came to be regarded as virtually one of them. This
distinction is in part due to the apocryphal [Forged] correspondence with St.
Paul" (Moses Hadas, Jay Professor of Greek Columbia University,
Hellenistic Culture Fusion and Diffusion, Columbia U., 1959, 57).
Church
writers casting doubt on the authenticity of Pauline Epistles:
"With
respect to the canonical Pauline epistles...none of them [were] by Paul;
neither fourteen, nor thirteen, nor nine or ten, nor seven or eight, nor yet
even the four [of F. C. Baur 1792 - 1860, et. al.] so long 'universally'
regarded as unassailable. They are all, without distinction, pseudepigrapha
(this of course, not implying the least depreciation of their contents). The
history of criticism, the breaking up of the group which began as early as
1520, already pointed in this direction " (Ibid., 3625).
Here, again,
we have a serious statement of findings from scholars having researched into
the origins of Christianity, regarding the creation of the character of Paul
and the religion he is supposed to have founded.
"One of
the strongest pieces of evidence to our mind, negatively, that the Paul who has
so long captivated our admiration and love is not historical, positively, that
he is the product, like all similar figures, of religious passion and
imagination is that Lucian [c. 117 - c. 180 C.E.], whose glance embraced the
great seats of supposed Pauline activity, betrays no knowledge of any such
vigorous personality as having left his mark upon the Christian communities
from a century before his time”. (Edwin
Johnson, 1842-1901, published anonymously, Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian
Origins.
American
Revolutionary leader and scholar, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) in his Age of Reason
gives us a clear insight into the conflicting beliefs of the early Christian
sects, the rejection of the New Testament, Acts and Epistles and moreover, the
first sect of Christians namely the Ebionites or Nazarenes condemned Paul,
originally a pagan and not even a Jew but a fraud, who converted to Judaism for
personal reasons and subsequently turned against Judaism formulating his own
new concept of a religion, spreading antisemitism all along.
"The Ebionites, or Nazarines, who were
the first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of Paul and regarded him as an
impostor. They report, among other things, that he was originally a pagan, that
he came to Jerusalem, where he lived some time; and that having a mind to marry
the daughter of the high priest, he caused himself to be circumcised; but that
not being able to obtain her, he quarreled with the Jews and wrote against
circumcision, and against the observance of the Sabbath, and against all the
legal ordinances. - -Author.' [footnote of Thomas Paine c. 1795] (Thomas Paine
[1737-1809], The Age of Reason.
The hate of
Paul for Jews is apparent to scholars, from his writings of the Epistles, who
make out Paul as the conceiver of the bitter divide between the Jews and the
first-Judaism based religion of Christianity.
"The responsibility of Paul for Christian antisemitism has been overlooked because of the settled prejudice that Paul
came from a highly Jewish background. It seemed impossible that a 'Hebrew of
the Hebrews', a descendant of the tribe of Benjamin, and a Pharisee of standing
could be the originator of anti-Semitic attitudes" (Hyam Maccoby, The
Mythmaker Paul and The Invention of Christianity, Harper & Row,
"1987" Pb. (c1986), 203).
Although the
religion of Jesus came into existence following his death (32-33 A.D.), the
same was not never called Christianity until sometime during the fourth
century, decades after Constantine at the First Council of Nicaea created and
proclaimed to the world, an universal Roman God Savior - Jesus Christ.
So, naturally,
all the ancient manuscripts and writings including those of Apollonius and
particularly his biography by Philostratus (220 A.D.) that existed before the
1st Council of Nicaea (325 A.D.) became the reference material for adaptation and creation of the Christ figure, the 12 Apostles and all the other players in
the Canon Gospels; and not the least the theological concepts of a doctrine
(creation, sin, death, redemption, heavenly reward including immortality) which
encompassed ancient mystic doctrines from time immemorial.
Scriptures
specially the Prophets from the Old Testament were deliberately misinterpreted
and mistranslated to lend support or subscribe to the element of concocted
truths about the Old Testament prophesies about Jesus and later his earthly
life - nativity, ministry, death and
resurrection – to prove Jesus as the long-awaited messiah and savior of the
world.
Much of the
above credit goes to the early Church Fathers, bishops, monks, scribes,
priests, popes and their canonical decrees, burning of historical documents and
other religious books, undertaking religious wars and inquisition as a result
of the Church’s intolerance and zeal to force Roman Catholic beliefs of a world
savior, Jesus Christ, upon the masses.
***
Paul Rodricks, Author & Freelance Writer.
I invite your comments and queries. Thank you.
Paul Rodricks
