Continuing my tour of early Christianity begun in my previous article: The persecution of early Christianity. I will go on to talk about one of the key figures of this moment. Without a doubt, I am talking about Saul of Tarsus, better known as Paul. Breaker par excellence of all the rules other than those established in his gospel, Paul manages to stand out above many of the Twelve, including Peter, even though he is the head of the nascent Church. As a clearer example we have the incident of Antioch where, according to the book of Acts of the Apostles, the importance of circumcision to be a Christian was elucidated.
Pablo was, in short, an energetic person who did not hesitate to say things clearly and who knew very well how to adapt the message depending on his audience. Something very important considering the complicated “market” of religions of the 1st century AD C.
The Environment of Pauline Theology
One of the first things we should do when studying a character is, without a doubt, take a look at the context in which they live. And as we have also mentioned, the religious “market” in this first century of the Christianity nascent was quite complex as well as abundant.
We must first talk about the conception of universe of Assyrians and Babylonians. For them, the Earth was flat, normally circular in shape, but with four well-differentiated cardinal points, the “four corners” of the Earth. The center of this was Babylon. In the lower part of the surface of the waters and the flat or rough land was the kingdom of the dead, which also fulfilled the function of base or sustenance of water and earth.
The old one Hebrew conception of the world is fundamentally based on this image,
that added some small precisions, that tried to form a more unitary system. From an original and formless chaos, God he was the one who had created the sky, the earth and the abysses. The Israelites modified the number of celestial spheres to seven, a number that indicates perfection. Heaven, in its superior sphere, the seventh, is the abode of the one God and his heavenly court, angels. These spirits replace the secondary gods of the Akkadians and Babylonians. The stars between heaven and earth were governed by delegates of God, also angels or celestial archons.
The hellenized judaismlittle by little, subordinated this worldview to a monotheistic faith in one God already one apocalyptic conception very widespread in pious circles: outside of God everything is subject to a divine law: inexorable time is what shapes a history of the universe and of the human being designed from the beginning by the divinity.
The universe was at first good and perfect, but later it was tremendously disordered by the sins and evil inclination of man. Finally God it will restore order to its creation, and a new whole will be generated, a future world, similar to the one at the beginning.
This vision of the universe coincides in part with the vision to which Paul belongs, the one that comes from Hellenism. Although for the Greeks heaven and earth have always existed – matter is eternal -, the former is like half a sphere, solid. This celestial “bowl” covers an earth that is flat.
In the case of Paul, the fact that he conceived of the world according to this worldview is confirmed by 2 Cor 12, 1-2:
“I will come to the visions and revelations of the Lord. I know of a man in Christ for fourteen years, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows…; such a one was caught up to the third heaven…”
Origin of Paul and pre-conversion life
Saul’s early years
It is very difficult to set the birth and the characteristics of Saul’s early life (later called Paul) since we must combine the data from the Pauline letters, the beginning of the letter to the Galatians and the data from Acts of the Apostles. That is why the chronology of his life can vary between 5 and 6 years for modern authors. The only thing we know for sure is that between 51 AD and 52 AD Paul was in Corinth since we know that he was accused before the Roman proconsul of the Greek province of Achaia, Lucius Junius Gallio, of acting illicitly in preaching the gospel. of the.
Placing your place source in Tarsus comes from the book Acts of the Apostles 22,3 («I am a Jewish man, born in Tarsus of Cilicia.”) Despite the fact that nothing appears in this regard in his letters, it is a fact that fits quite well with what we know about his personality since, after reading his letters, we can see that he was a very Hellenized Jew. What the Apostle does affirm of himself is that his family was totally Jewish. We found that in Phil 3, 5:
Circuncidated on the eighth day; of the lineage of Israel; of the tribe of Benjamin; Hebrew, son of Hebrews”
As a mother tongue we can say, quite probably, that it was Greek since we see in his letters that he handles it with remarkable ease and that he was capable of creating neologisms or giving new meanings to old terms to express his ideas. Furthermore, according to Acts 21, 40; 22.2; 26.14, also spoke Hebrew and Aramaic.
Training
It has been discussed at length whether the Apostle followed Greek higher education and whether he received training in classical authors. This is not very plausible considering that the family of Pablo it was of strict Jewish observance and the Greek formation supposed to proclaim the existence of false gods, amoral and contrary to the only god. In addition, we do not find in the letters references to poets or other writers.
In his writings there are only maxims or commonplaces of popular wisdom, and in any case allusions to sayings already popularized by philosophers and playwrights.
Secondly, Paul must have known the basics of pagan religion in generalespecially of the mystery cults, and to have some idea of the philosophical schools in vogue in his day, Stoics, Cynics and Epicureans, because he seems to consciously confront his message about Jesus with that of the pagan, mystery religions, with some ideas of these philosophers and the cult of the emperor. The literary corpus that Pablo knows and uses with passion and technique is the Jewish Bible. In any case, most of the Pauline biblical citations are more like the so-called LXX or Septuagint version (the version of the Jewish translation of the Bible into Greek).
As for itself Pablo Was he in contact with the Pharisaic world or should we not point out that, based on the characteristics of Pharisaic piety and its demands, it seems more than likely that getting a thorough education and living according to such standards was virtually impossible outside of Jewish Palestine. The traditional position is that Paul was trained as a Pharisee in Jerusalem according to Acts 22, 3:
“Brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the correct observance of the law of our fathers, I am jealous of God, as you all are today.”
Other researchers argue that it is extremely unlikely that a true Pharisee would have used a non-Hebrew Bible in his argumentbut its Greek version. Furthermore, although all Pauline theology rests almost exclusively on Old Testament conceptions developed by Pharisaism, the Apostle often understands them in a radically different way, sometimes exactly the other way around. Paul was also an allegorist. His exegetical system might resemble the use of the Greek allegorical method that the Alexandrian philosophers had used to understand Homer.
In conclusion, it could be indicated as an intermediate hypothesis that the word “Pharisee” is used in a different sensebroader, more as a defender of Pharisaic ideas than as an expert in “rabbinical” reasoning.
Persecutor
According to the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul himself (Phil 3,6) there is no doubt that the Apostle was a furious persecutor of the nascent Church. According to Acts 6-8, when certain theological problems arose within the Greek-speaking synagogues in Jerusalem, provoked by the Hellenistic Jewish followers of Jesus, Paul intervened in the disputes against the latter, although in a secondary way. Later, his boss, Esteban, was stoned. Action with which Paul agreed (Acts 8,1) and on his part began a persecution of the community of believers in Jerusalem. The rejection of this community can come for various reasons.
On the one hand, it has been argued that if Paul met Jesus in life He had to think of him what many Jews of his time did, namely, that he was a false messiah because he had ended his life as a failure, not supported by God. Now, this is not to tell us that this thought leads to bloody violence since we have the case of the great Rabbi Gamaliel, who declared himself not in favor of taking disciplinary measures against the apostles, leaving the judgment on his truth in the hand of God. (Acts 5, 38-49)
It has also been argued that they were doctrinal motives deducible from what chapters 6-7 of Acts tell. Another reason for rejection may also be that Paul feared the new political consequences of the appearance of a new sect who kept proclaiming that Jesus was the Lord, the Messiah, who was going to establish a kingdom despite having died on a cross.
Roman citizen?
Paul does not say anywhere in his letters that he was a Roman citizen., but Hch does support it (16,37; 22,25; 23,27), and certainly one could be a Tarsiota and a Roman citizen at the same time. There are authors who do not defend the idea of Roman citizenship since Paul suffered many punishments during his life that he could have avoided by stating that he was a Roman citizen.
The primary reason to defend that Paul was a citizen was a citizen is his appeal to caesar (Acts 25, 10-12). Although any free inhabitant of the Empire could appeal to the emperor, if his attribution of Roman citizenship was shown to be false, he could be executed.
After conversion: his missionary journeys
Pablo he was, as we have already mentioned, an apocalyptic apostle. In light of his call, Paul thought that, despite death on the cross and apparent failure, Jesus was the true Messiah. There was a new plan of God for salvation in the final moments; an era of grace began for the Gentiles. The divinity now facilitated repentance to live a new life that would lead to the next final salvation (Rom 2, 3-4; 5,6-11) The Messiah he was not only the redeemer of Israel as understood by the mass of the Jews, but of the complete or restored Israel, which in later times would also welcome into its bosom a certain number of Gentiles.
Therefore, you had to hurry to achieve two goals of the divine plan about the end of time. On the one hand, that all Israel accept Jesus as Messiah and, on the other hand, that the number of Gentiles predetermined by the divinity be completed as soon as possible to integrate into the true people or family of God. The remaining time is very short!
Total there were 4 trips founding different communities wherever he went (Thessaloniki, Corinth, etc.) Pablo Y Barnabas…