Please don't berate me because I have questions.
I don't mean to ... I rather thought you were telling me the way it is, rather than asking about it. I try to be precise, because if I put 'me' into it, I tend to go off into tangents, into 'deep water' areas of personal inquiry, and tend to waffle ... so I try and stay impersonal, and 'on song' with regard to sure doctrine ... sorry if I offended ...
PROBLEM NUMBER 1:
Paul, if I understand him correctly, is telling these secular, sophisticated, philosophical Greeks ... not to think about life Philosophically, not to 'think like a Greek' ... but to enter into life in an entirely new manner, in a way which likely will seem foolish to the sophists all around them...
We-e-e-ll, Greek philosophy was not divorced from religion — the true practice of philosophy had a moral, ascetical and religious dimension, unlike the practice of philosophy today ... and if one reads Acts, and Paul's address to the Greeks, he starts from their religious sentiment, and goes into the philosophical, which would not have been alien to them, the Greeks had a profound religious sensibility — "In him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28) — the summation of Paul's argument, is in fact a direct quote from the Cretan poet Epiphemides, who had been dead some 6oo years by then. So no, personally I don't think philosophy is an issue (but then I'm a Christian Neoplatonist, I revel in it — some don't)
Christian doctrine explained many of its ideas through Greek philosophy, and I would say 'corrected' many of the inherrent errors in Greek philosophy — St Maximus's revision of the platonic ternary 'rest - movement - becoming' to the Christian 'becoming - movement - rest' solved many of the problems that Plato himself acknowledged.
Then again, the idea of Logos is taken from the Stoics and refined ... in fact Christian doctrine has 'baptised' Stoicism, Platonism and Aristotelianism.
And the whole idea of the person, as an autonomous being, derives directly from Christian doctrine and the reworking of the philosophy of being, nature and person in light of Christian revelation.
And again, Paul was erudite in Greek as well as Hebrew, and could converse easily with philosophers or priests ... Tarsus was a major intellectual centre, and studies have shown marked similarities between Paul's writing and famous Stoic, Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
Taking another tack, many secular scholars now refer to Luke, the author of Acts, for his insights into Jewish, Greek and Roman culture. Historians now realise that Luke provides a vivid portrait of a Jerusalem as a city teetering on the edge of revolt, of the Roman authorities desperately trying to keep the lid on things, and of a Greek culture passed its prime, living off its reputation and like all cultures in decline, all pose and little substance ...
Paul himself, a Hellenized Jew, sees the danger of attempting to rationalize Christianity within the Greek model. 'You cannot enter thru this door of reason, of gnosis,' Paul seems to insist. You will not find TRUTH thru this entryway. You will find Truth only thru an OPEN HEART.
Don't forget that Paul was a zealot Pharisee, a hardline Jewish fundamentalist who possessed a Greek education, but I don't think you can call him 'Hellenized' ... he would have been as contemptuous of Hellenized Jews as he was of Christians, only he saw Christianity as the bigger blasphemy and therefore more dangerous.
Gnosis is a whole other issue. In the world in meant knowledge, for the Christian, it meant being. So the gnostic was never changed, he either was born gnostic (a pneumatic) or associated himself with a gnostic (a psychic) or was, like the vast majority of humanity, counted among the hylic, and beyond redemption. Gnostic salvation was attained by attachment to external knowledge ... whereas Christian salvation, and its gnosis, was to do with a rebirth of the actual being of the person, baptism, metanoia (change of heart) and theosis — participation in the Divine Life.
Paul saw that philosophy was not void of truth or wisdom, but it's limitation was the human intellect ... it was not Revelation, and so he was quite prepared to put philosophy to work to explain the Christian Mysteries, as much as they can be explained.
PROBLEM NUMBER 2:
"You foolish Galatians..." Paul is a feisty dude, isn't he?
And then some! 'Prickly' is not the word for it.
(Even when Paul is acting in all humility. He just can't help himself.)
He's a man driven by a vision, and one of those guys, whatever he did, it's always at full throttle ... no half measures ...
Paul is telling these Jewish Christians, who feel considerable discomfort at communing with Gentiles, to ... 'get used to it.'
I tend to see it more as 'don't you get it?' but you're right, that's what all Paul's letters are ... "this is this" as Robert de Niro says in
Deerhunter ... but then if there was the soft cop/hard cop routine, then Paul would be very much the hard cop.
I was once told the only way to read Corinthians is in a rage ... but it is a poem of love at the same time ... a rage of love ... the only thing I can think of as equivalent offhand is I once heard someone reading "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas:
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
A poem written to his father, who was dying ... you hear po-faced poets reading it in that 'poetry' voice, which is a travesty ... it should be full of pain and sorrow and anger and love and grief ...
The new compact with God involves not the Law, but GRACE. Grace is the new Divine Truth. Paul saw a deep danger with Jewish Christians backsliding into Judaic practices, and closing up their heart to other Christians - thus closing up their heart to God's grace. Closing their heart to Divine Truth itself.
Absolutely. But the key to Grace is Jesus Christ — One Church, one faith, one body, one Christ.
So, Thomas. Don't tell me there is no 'trouble in paradise' within early Christendom.
Are you asking me or telling me?
I have never said there wasn't dispute, all I'm saying is the doctrine — the Apostolic Teaching — was there first, that's what the disputes were about.
As someone said — you have to have orthodoxy before you can have heresy. You have to have a doctrine, before you can have a dispute about it.
But the Apostolic Teaching — most accurately contained and transmitted in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions — can be traced back to day one without compromise, it was and is not something spun out of nothing as they went along. The Apostolic Teaching was there right at the beginning, and it can be traced all the way through.
Paul was the first to write (as far as we know), and tackles the problems of his day, c50-65AD. Mark (c65AD?) focusses on the Messianic Secret and why Jesus didn't declare Himself divine right from the outset; Matthew (c70AD?) focusses on the problems and persecutions of the Jewish-Christian converts, and 'proves' Christ is the one of whom the Hebrew Scriptures speak. Luke (80AD?) on the problems and persecutions of the Gentile church, John (120AD?) on nascent gnosticism (the teachings of Cerinthus) and the dualist teaching taking root at Ephesus — but the Apostolic Faith was there
before the dispute, it did not emerge as the result of it.
And the two most troubling pitfalls - nodes of dissention? 'Philosophy' and 'Law.'
Again, it depends on what timeframe you're talking about. The issue with the Law and the Jews was really done and dusted with the Fall of Jerusalem (70AD) and the Council of Jamnia (80AD).
The immediate problem (1st century) for Jewish Christians was conflict with the Jews, which led to wonder if they'd made an error, and for the Gentile Christians it was why didn't the Jews accept Christ, which made them wonder, too. There were riots in Rome between Jews and Christians, and probably so elsewhere.
Then came persecution, (1st - 3rd) local spats with regional authorities (ie at Ephesus where the Christians were converting so many pagans they were destabilising the temple economy) and things like Nero in Rome.
Philosophy was not so much of a problem — it was largely peripheral until the fourth century and then became problematic because secular authorities were either trying to determine doctrine, or manipulate the church for their own ends.
All the Greeks Fathers were philosophers — only Irenaeus, the first, was a Churchman before he was a philosopher. Some were absolute geniuses of philosophy, and wrote the most arcane and complex stuff in support of Christian doctrine — Gregory of Nyssa goes on about 'spacing', St Maximus goes on about 'movement' ... then, of course, you have the Basils and the Ambroses, wonderful pastoral theologians ...
Paul works tirelessly, to:
1. Wean Hellenized Christians from reliance upon Greek Philosophy.
I really think that's wrong. Paul's audience was primarily Jewish, and I'm not sure where you can see a dispute with Greek philosophy? Can you cite your examples?
2. Wean Jewish Christians from strict reliance upon Judaic Law.
Yes I can see that.
As a Christian ward-healer, Paul is relentless. Paul is as feisty and as unrelenting as he, pre-conversion, must have been as a persecutor of Christians. But, with Paul, everything comes back to the OPEN HEART of the believer and the GRACE of God.
Yes it does ... but that's my point: The apostolic doctrine, the Gospel (including Paul's) was there before the disputes, so the disputes only show that there were disputes, they don't show that the doctrine changed.
This is how, in my limited awareness, Thomas, I read the writings of Paul. He has to work damn hard to get Christianity on track. But he appears to have a remarkably clear focus as to what this track is.
Well Christianity was on track before Paul ... but no-one worked harder than he to spread the word abroad, and people are people everywhere, and fall into old ways, old habits ... not so much has changed in 2,000 years. if Paul were around today, he'd be preaching the same thing.
Paul's chief ecclesiastical/rhetorical tool (I have to assume) comes via his appeal to the nascent religion's Oral Tradition.
No. It comes from his own conversion — Paul preaches that point quite adamantly, he received his gospel from no man.
In Acts, Paul is struck blind by his conversion, and is taken to Damascus, and instructed at the house of Ananias ... in Paul's own words, he is struck by his conversion, and heads south, to Arabia ... I believe, for various reasons, he went to Mount Sinai, then he went to Damascus, and spent time with Christians there ... but as Saul before his conversion was a Christian hunter, I am pretty sure he would have been pretty well clued up on their habits, practices and doctrines, if he was going to argue with and accuse them.
How does Paul employ the Oral Tradition?
Paul is a direct source of Oral Tradition. The only time he refers to teachings other than his own gospel is to show how the two coincide. So Paul's preaching is Oral Tradition, and when he writes letters, reminding his congregations what he'd taught them ... Written Tradition!
The Oral Tradition is what the Apostles were preaching, almost daily, in the Temple in Jerusalem and abroad. So it starts with 1st generation eye witness stuff, as well as those who had seen and even known Christ.
Oh, there's more than that. Open heart is a common spiritual teaching, not unique to Christianity ... and the same goes for grace, really ... so it's one thing to say it, it's another to realise what it means in Christian terms, what, if anything, is unique to the term in the Christian Tradition.
To not be distracted by everyday human frailties nor be derailed by individual personality-irks and corporeal-urges.
Again, this is common, so it's not uniquely Christian.
The deep TRUTH of the Oral Tradition is that it keeps the Community on-point.
Many view Tradition as a monolithic encumbrance, a fossilisation or ossification of something. Actually it's quite the reverse, it's the sap, the blood, the life force which animates. It's constantly evolving, and always the same.
If you want to know the Christian Tradition, look at:
1: Scripture — the exoteric teaching;
2: Creed — the esoteric teaching;
But, as in all things, both have their own language and their own hermeneutic, and without those keys, as Christ said and Paul echoed, you never really get to the meat of the matter.
Thomas
