As we have already noted, by the second century there were four major parallel religions that had come out of the Middle East: Rabbinic Judaism, the Jesus Movement (Ebionites), the Gnostic Movement, and the Christ Movement (Proto-Orthodoxy). The latter movement never existed within Judaism because right from the outset it promoted non-Jewish beliefs and practices. It paralleled Judaism and the Jesus Movement. Christianity as we know it today grew out of Paul and his Christ Movement during the second through fourth centuries. It fought hard against its rivals—Ebionites, Gnostics, and, in time, Marcionites, Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, and probably dozens of other sects and movements. During this period, no one tradition was “right” and the others “heretical.” They all attracted members, promoted themselves as the authentic expression of the faith, and considered others to be disseminators of falsehoods. These centuries must have been exceptionally confusing for ordinary people trying to make sense out of radically conflicting claims.
By the late fourth century, Proto-Orthodoxy had won the day. Constantine favored this form of Christianity, and Theodosius proclaimed it the official imperial religion of the Roman Empire in 380. Moreover, it was a fourth-century Proto-Orthodox bishop, Athanasius of Alexandria in Egypt, who promulgated a list which became the authoritative canon of scripture. Paul’s writings were prominently included, as was the Book of Acts, which glorified the work of Paul. No Gnostic or specific Ebionite documents were included, although the Gospel of Matthew and the Letter of James were, standing in stark contrast to Paul’s position, silent reminders that not everyone had come onboard. It was during the fourth century, then, that the Christian “church” was born. By then it possessed one creed, one recognized hierarchy, and one set of canonical writings paralleling those of the Old Testament. There was, finally, one church backed by the power of one state. Proto-Orthodoxy had achieved what no other Christian faction had come close to accomplishing.
One curious feature of Proto-Orthodox writings was their persistent preoccupation with Judaism. Bitterness, anger, vilification, demonization—these ugly traits tainted the relationship between Proto-Orthodox Christianity and Judaism. Every aspect of Jewish identity, culture, and religion was systematically assaulted, rejected, and devalued during the decades between Paul and such figures as Justin Martyr and Marcion some ninety years later. This sustained attack can be traced, decade by decade, on the basis of surviving documents that showcase pivotal moments in the discussion.
A bigger problem is this: Why would Proto-Orthodoxy even bother with such a campaign of vilification? Why did it not simply ignore Judaism? Why did it feel it had to attack everything Jewish? What stood behind this unrelenting preoccupation? Why was it so obviously defensive … and threatened by Judaism?
Flashes of anger hit us from time to time as we read the New Testament. The Gospel of Matthew, for instance, lashed out at the Pharisees. But the angriest document by far was Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. He was absolutely livid. He berated his readers for having been “bewitched” by other teachers (Galatians 3:1). Whoever these were, Paul sensed that they had seduced his flock, and he rose on his haunches to protect what he felt was rightfully his. He angrily criticized his readers for listening—apparently receptively—to their message. Writing in an abrupt, curt fashion, he set the record straight in no uncertain terms.
The hostility we encounter in Paul and Matthew sounds very much like the fearful anger expressed by some of the Hebrew prophets. Centuries before, Amos had denounced a segment of his society for adopting Canaanite beliefs and practices—polytheism, Canaanite worship, and sexual practices—along with a general failure to observe the covenant with God. His anger was fueled by fear, a deeply rooted anxiety that the community would increasingly abandon the covenant and consequently experience God’s rejection. His fears were well grounded. The religion of the Canaanites seduced many a young Israelite—so much so that the Bible indicates that both the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms fell to foreign powers as a result of this turning away from the covenant.
Does the anger we find in some early Christian texts also betray fear—a deep concern that members of the new movement would continue or even adopt Jewish beliefs and practices? Why was there this underlying anxiety? Weren’t Paul’s arguments convincing? Did some members of this new movement feel the constant “tug” of the ancient scriptures that emphasized the importance of Torah? Did they, perhaps, share Matthew’s convictions that Jesus himself taught and observed Torah? Why did they require such strong directives from their leaders to abandon things Jewish? Did they, in fact, relinquish all things Jewish?
Proto-Orthodoxy made it very clear—right from the outset—that theirs was not a Jewish movement in any sense. Their stance was venomous, fueled by rage and bent on seeing only the worst within this ancient and competing religion. These attitudes originated in the earliest days of the Christ Movement and continued long after Proto-Orthodoxy became the official Christian religion of the Roman Empire. Paul’s rejection of Torah is the right place to start, for he set in motion the anti-Jewish dynamic that reverberated for centuries.
What are we to make of Paul?
A Torah-free, Christ-centered movement was not at all what Jesus envisaged when he announced the Kingdom of God in his parables. Nor did it agree with what Matthew had Jesus preach in the Sermon on the Mount. From its inception, Paul’s religion represented a radical alternative to the one that Jesus proclaimed and his brother maintained. We tend not to see the radical nature of Paul’s thought, since our perceptions of the New Testament are often shaped by the power of Paul’s thought.
Paul’s position enjoyed enormous appeal, and its many advantages over its rivals need to be acknowledged. For one thing, it was a much easier religion to follow than that of either Jesus or James. Obedience to a complex code of behavior was not required, and a whole series of don’ts and do’s did not plague the minds of his members. Minimal necessity to refer to the Old Testament also vastly reduced the amount of background information needed to function knowledgeably within the movement. It also held out the welcome mat to Gentiles, without any strings attached, providing an easy entry into the movement. The convenience of a Torah-free religion allowed Paul’s sect to spread rapidly among Gentiles, who probably had little in-depth exposure to Judaism. It offered salvation, assurances that its members were the offspring of Abraham, part of an ancient heritage favored by God, all without Torah obligations— and, best of all, no circumcision. Clearly this constituted a winning formula.
But many of Paul’s contemporaries found what he said absolutely shocking. We need only to review the mind-set of his peers to understand why this was the case. Two centuries prior to Paul, Antiochus Epiphanes had forcefully tried to “do in” Judaism. That had sent shivers down the spines of Jewish leaders, who proposed different strategies for dealing with the threat of Hellenization. All these involved Torah. When Paul came on to the scene proclaiming a Torah-free religion, however, it exposed old wounds, reminding people of what Antiochus had tried to. They recognized what Paul was up to. Here was another figure trying to do away with Judaism, this time by persuasion. No wonder Paul experienced opposition wherever he went: he was perceived as undermining Judaism and hastening assimilation into Hellenistic culture. Paul’s religion unleashed a host of radical questions.
Paul’s innovative theology of history sidelined Judaism and appropriated for the new Christ Movement the promises made to Judaism. It was, after all, through Judaism in the messianic era that the promises of blessings to the Gentiles would be conveyed. No longer was that going to be the case. Paul divided history into three segments: from Abraham to Moses, from Moses to Christ, and then from Christ onward. He admitted that Torah had legitimacy, but only for a specific period in history. Its limited role was that of a teacher, providing moral guidelines and prescribing right behavior. Now, Paul contended, the time of maturity had emerged when true religion was to be rooted in faith in Christ. There was no room for a religion that continued to focus on Torah.
Paul’s intent was clearly to cut out Judaism. The promises to Abraham would come about, he maintained, not through the Torah-observant approach of Judaism but through his new movement whose members have faith in Christ. Members of his Christ Movement might not be Jews, but they were, he said, “children of Abraham,” and therefore entitled to all the promises God made to their ancient patriarch.
Paul’s theology of history, therefore, served to dismiss Judaism. By contending that the period in history had ended when the law was legitimate, he left no room for Judaism as the continuing religion of Torah. Its validity, whether biblical or rabbinic, was destroyed. This view has had enormous consequences in subsequent history. It represents the origin of the audacious claim that Christianity has “superseded” or “replaced” Judaism as the religion of Abraham, a position that allowed Judaism no room in the new Christian era.
Supersessionism has the effect of declaring that Judaism is no longer a valid religion and possesses no legitimacy, and that the Jewish people no longer have a covenant with God. They have ceased to be the people of God or even “a” people of God. There is, on this view, one and only one covenant, namely, that between God and the church. Therefore there is no reason to follow Jewish law—or, for that matter, to be Jewish. Supersessionism takes away the right to be Jewish in a Christian era, depriving the religion and the people a right to exist. While many modern Christian denominations have attempted to denounce supersessionism in official documents, this powerful position has been evident in Christian writings over the centuries, with exceptionally serious consequences for Jewish communities in the midst of Christian culture.1 All this was created through a few words, dashed off in the heat of controversy, and yet with horrendous impact throughout subsequent history.
Of what use, then, was the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament? This question would surely have surfaced early on as a result of Paul’s rewriting Israel’s history. If the religion from Moses to Christ was now null and void, having served its temporary historic purpose, what was to be made of the Books of the Torah, the Prophets and the Writings? How should one understand such leaders as Moses, Amos, Hosea, Josiah, Isaiah, and Ezra? All these figures emphasized the covenant between God and the Jewish people. The importance of Torah shouts from every page of the Hebrew Bible. It is inescapable.
The implications of Paul’s thought were not lost on his audience. In time, they began to ask questions as issues pertaining to the shape and content of the Christian canon become debated. Should any of the books of what now is called comprises the Christian Old Testament be included? If so, what was the rationale? If the law of Torah was not binding on Christians, why retain, read, and refer to texts that clearly made its observance their focal point?
It would be interesting to envisage a conversation in which Paul is confronted by such figures from the Bible as Moses or Amos. What would these towering defenders of the covenant say to him? What would Paul and the author of the Gospel of Matthew have in common? What would he and the Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran have discussed? What would James the brother of Jesus have said to him?
More radically, how would the discussion go between Jesus and Paul?
Religious believers usually wish to view their sacred texts as embodying ideas that emanate from God, however the process of transmission is conceived— whether through an immediate direct revelation or through a gradual historical process of insight. Jewish believers were no exception. Then and now they believe that their scriptures contain the will of God for themselves. It outlines a path to be followed, promises redemption, and paints a picture of a great destiny that awaits all humanity in a transformed world. What, then, is to be made of that view, if the Old Testament is to be set aside?
By dismissing the validity of Torah, Paul’s views questioned the trustworthiness of revelation. The covenant was envisaged by Jews as one in perpetuity—“to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9).2 Paul presented a new perspective, however, that it was only meant to serve for a period of time. That’s very convenient for his point of view, but it gave rise to profoundly troublesome questions. How do we reconcile the view that God at one point enacted a covenant in perpetuity with Paul’s view that this no longer applies? Does this change our understanding of the nature of deity? Is God a deity who changes his mind?
Moreover, if God can cancel one contract, why not another? What assurances are there that God will honor any agreement with humanity? Trust, reliability, and the integrity of deity are fundamentally at stake.
We have explored how Paul dismissed Torah observance in his Letter to the Galatians. His arguments centered on three main considerations. He appealed selectively to Abraham as an exemplar of faith. He developed a unique theology of history no one else had ever advanced. And, contrary to scripture, he claimed that all who follow the law were “under a curse.” Paul did not dare, of course, to claim that Jesus himself supported these radical views, nor did he appeal to a decision of the so-called Jerusalem Conference. Those who heard him were well aware that what he was saying applied as much to Jews as to Gentiles. Even the Book of Acts recorded rumors to this effect (Acts 21:17—22).3 This message was very much part of Paul’s enormous appeal. It had all the benefits of Judaism without any of its obligations.
Paul’s dismissal of Torah was far-reaching. As he correctly pointed out, anyone who was circumcised was obligated to follow the entire Torah (Galatians 5:3). There is no disagreement there. The law is not just one item. It constituted a whole package: the Ten Commandments, the dietary laws, keeping the Sabbath, observing festivals like Passover, circumcision, wearing reminders of the central passages of the Torah, having a mezuzah on doors, and so on. Paul was opposed to all of these: his objection was to Torah itself, not simply one aspect of Torah. Paul is not correctly interpreted as focusing just on ritual or dietary laws or festivals. It is not as if Paul made an exemption for part of the law, say, the Ten Commandments. Nor did he present Torah observance as an option, as if we could choose to keep the law or not, depending on our personal preferences. He was also not saying that whereas Gentiles must not obey Torah, Jews could and should.
He referred to Torah observance as “slavery” (Galatians 4:25). In even stronger language, Paul asserted that Torah observance was emphatically not a matter of choice. It had, in fact, dire consequences for achieving salvation. Those who observe Torah have cut themselves off from Christ and lapsed from grace (Galatians 5:4). For Paul, Torah observance and being a member of the Christ Movement were incompatible. “No one,” Paul decreed, “will be justified by the works of the law” (Galatians 2:16). Once again, we see the broad implications of Paul’s position—he writes “no one.” He was not just advocating that only Gentile members should refrain from keeping Torah. His edict applied across the board, to all human beings, Jews included. He believed that he had found a superior way.
In rejecting Torah observance for all, Paul clearly set his movement apart from Judaism and the Jesus Movement. His religion was defined, in part, by what it was not: it was not Jewish. That set off a powerful dynamic of competition, to win over Gentiles, God-fearers, and Hellenized Jews, and to convince them that there existed a religious option that did not involve Torah. Creating a Torah-free religion was a brilliant maneuver. But what was its impact on his new followers? Did they have to change their lifestyle? Gentiles who were God-fearers might miss Sabbath observances, but, since they had not been obligated to follow Torah, the impact might have been minimal, even less for Gentiles who had had no connection with the Jewish synagogue at all. Those impacted the most would have been Jewish converts to the new movement. Just because Paul said that the time of Torah was over didn’t mean that they suddenly dropped Sabbath and Passover observances and started violating dietary laws. Setting aside the entire biblical tradition and its thirteen-hundred-year-old covenant could not be so easily accomplished for this segment of Paul’s flock.
What holidays and festivals did Paul’s group observe? Doing away with Torah removed the “rhythm” to Jewish living—not just the weekly routine of Sabbath observance as a special day of rest and contemplation, but also the yearly cycle of special events recalling significant experiences in the Old Testament. Unlike Jesus, his family, and his followers, we do not see Paul preparing for Passover. That time-honored festival commemorating the liberation from slavery in Egypt was not to be observed. Nor was Succoth, the Festival of Booths, to be remembered—celebrating the circumstances under which the Israelites lived in the desert after the Exodus. Shavuot, the great festival celebrating the giving of the Torah, was abolished. Thus Paul’s members would be under no obligation to even consider making the annual pilgrimage up to Jerusalem. No Hanukkah, that wonderful magical festival that trumpeted the preservation of Jewish identity in the midst of hostile Gentile forces. The entire Jewish calendar was just swept away … with nothing to replace it. All those great festivals, with opportunities to pass on to children the traditions of the ancestors, were bypassed.
By rejecting Torah, did Paul’s members cease work on the Sabbath? Or did they fall into line with their contemporaries and work as they worked?
Gone, too, was the Jewish lifestyle expressed through dietary laws. This pattern sanctified the act of eating, giving it an ethical dimension. According to Torah, people are called upon to make choices regarding what they eat and how they eat, turning this basic necessity of living into a religious act. Associated laws also helped ensure a humane killing of animals. These were not just boundary markers—although they were that—but, more importantly, they reflected what the Jewish people considered to be the divinely mandated pattern of holy living. Paul’s view opened up a whole new dietary spectrum including not only shellfish, but also meat from any source, including meat butchered at local temples, which were associated with the worship of idols.
Amazingly, Paul indicated that there was no problem eating food, specifically meat, sacrificed in temples devoted to pagan deities. His reasoning was that since idols do not exist, then one was “no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do” (1 Corinthians 8:8). Clearly Paul lacked awareness that there had (supposedly) been a Jerusalem conference that expressly prohibited Gentiles, like Jews, from eating food sacrificed to idols. This constitutes yet more evidence that such a conference never occurred. If it had, then Paul was in clear violation of its terms.
Doing away with Torah observance immediately raised issues with which Paul had to struggle for most of his life. For generations, Torah had grounded ethics in Jewish life. They were debated, interpreted, and followed. But with Torah gone, what would provide the basis for ethics? What behavior would be consistent with Paul’s message? Removing Torah, for instance, immediately eliminated the Ten Commandments. These foundational laws included injunctions to uphold monotheism, not to succumb to idolatry, to honor parents, to remember the Sabbath, not to murder, not to steal, not to be envious, and so on.
So, too, went the whole fabric of ethics: the treatment of spouses, strangers, animals; marriage and divorce laws; laws pertaining to sexual relations; the judicial system and the means for resolving disputes; and laws relating to property rights. Everything. The whole Torah package meant for regulating communal life disappeared. That was a major loss, in one fell swoop. What did Paul think would replace these principles? Conventional Roman wisdom? Popular mores? Common sense?
Paul must have been aware that he had a huge problem on his hands. In his Letter to the Galatians, after tossing out Torah, he immediately cautioned his readers that being called to freedom was no excuse for “self-indulgence” (Galatians 5:13). He urged his followers to live by the Spirit, not the desires of the flesh, noting that “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law” (Galatians 5:18). This latter point, incidentally, again reinforces the view that Paul intended his sweeping generalizations to apply to all humans.
He then contrasted the fruits of the Spirit with those of the flesh. These fruits of the Spirit included “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). These are all wonderful qualities but very difficult to translate into a practical and actionable system of ethics. Throughout all his letters, Paul had to put out ethical fires. Most of his letter we call 1 Corinthians concerns how to behave when one is living a life that is Torah-free. The issues he had to respond to were major: divisions within the community, dissensions over leadership, handling lawsuits, directions regarding marriage, sexual improprieties, and eating food sacrificed to idols. His followers appear not to know what was expected of them by way of appropriate behavior. That is not at all surprising. Evidently living in the Spirit fails to provide actionable guidelines.
The potential danger of a Torah-free religion was that it lacked clear moral guidelines for members. Paul constantly found himself having to respond to urgent crises, one at a time. Without having at his disposal a set of overarching ethical principles to guide decision making, and being unable to appeal to the authority of the Old Testament, Paul personally acted as the arbiter of correct behavior, often appealing just to his own personal preferences. For example, to the question, Should one get married? he replied, no, the unmarried and widows should remain as they were, as he was, that is, stay single or widowed. Only if they could not practice “self-control” should they contemplate marriage (1 Corinthians 7:8—9). Not surprisingly, this is not a passage quoted in Christian marriage services, which are hard pressed to find any New Testament justification for marriage at all.
Nor did Paul appeal to the words of the historical Jesus for his ethical pronouncements. He—and he alone—decided what “living in the Spirit” meant. Occasionally he appealed to “the Lord,” but this more likely referred to insights he had received from the Christ of experience than the Jesus of history. Over time, Proto-Orthodoxy did develop ethical principles to replace Torah. These were based on Jesus’ twofold summary of the law—love of God and love of neighbor—as well as the Ten Commandments, which crept back into Christian thinking, although the injunction to remember the Sabbath became reinterpreted and eventually transferred to Sunday.
By focusing on the Christ, Paul stripped Jesus of his Jewish identity. If we search all of Paul’s writings for references to the historical Jesus, we come up with very little. Only a few historical details surface: that Jesus was born of a woman (Galatians 4:4); that he was Jewish (Galatians 4:4); and that he died (for example, 1 Corinthians 15:3). He dwelt on Jesus’ death, contending that God raised Jesus from the dead (Galatians 1:1) and interpreting this resurrection along the lines of the savior mythology of Roman mystery religions.
Looking through the letters of Paul, we find that he rarely quoted the Jesus of history. He never cited his example. Some matters he said he received from “the Lord.” These included the sayings pertaining to the Last Supper. But even where he could usefully have cited the words of Jesus, he doesn’t. Paul’s verdict of no divorce at all (1 Corinthians 7:10—11), for example, was stricter than the position of Jesus presented in Matthew (Matthew 19:9), which allowed for divorce in specific circumstances.
In reading Paul, we have no sense that the Christ was really Jewish. There were no references to Jesus’ insistence on the higher righteousness. How could there be when Paul denied the validity of Torah? Nor did Paul mention the parables of Jesus, with the possible exception of one single phrase, that the Kingdom of God would come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2; compare Matthew 24:43). What happened to Jesus’ anti-Roman political vision, that radical alternative to the Pax Romana? Did Paul share these antiRoman sentiments?
There is also no evidence from Paul that he practiced Judaism or thought of himself as Jewish in any sense. In Galatians, he noted that earlier in his life he had progressed in Judaism far more than many of his contemporaries, being enthusiastic for the traditions of the elders (Galatians 2:14). The later Book of Acts depicted Paul studying Judaism in Jerusalem with one of the leading Pharisaic teachers of the time, Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), but this may simply represent an attempt to enhance Paul’s credentials. Either way, Paul dismissed his Jewish education as “rubbish” (Philippians 3:8).
In removing the Jewishness of Jesus, it was not as if he were attempting to somehow universalize him, moving him beyond ethnicity, perhaps in an attempt to portray him as a model for all humanity. Paul just wasn’t interested in the Jesus of history.
Stripping the Christ of his Jewishness had another crucial implication for Paul’s understanding of Jesus’ identity. It altered the meaning of Jesus as the political Messiah, the Jewish leader expected to return to drive out the Romans and bring about a transformed landscape—the Kingdom of God instead of the Pax Romana. Early on in his career, Paul expected Jesus to return soon: “the appointed time has grown short,” and “the present form of this world is passing away”(1 Corinthians 7:29, 31). As time progressed, however, Jesus did not return. The world looked very much the same after Jesus as before. This was an absolutely devastating turn of events, and it represented a very major problem for Christian theology, then and now. If Jesus truly were the Messiah, how was it that the world after him looked very much like the world before him? A Messiah must bring about a dramatic change in world politics. Newspaper headlines have to shout: “Evil destroyed. Governments fall. Peace reigns. A successor of David sits on the throne of Israel.” That’s what a real Messiah has to do.
Clearly Paul had to shift emphasis. Without world transformation, Jesus remained a Messiah-in-waiting. Paul probably saw the problem. What did Jesus-as-Messiah mean if the world had not been radically transformed? One option was to continue to wait. If so, for how long? For decades? centuries? millennia? Waiting is one perennial solution. The ancient Jesus Movement waited. So, too, do some contemporary Christian groups. Waiting is a position promoted, for instance, by some modern-day mass media evangelists heralding the end-time, still expected “soon.” This is often tied in to signs that the waiting period is virtually over—establishment of Israel, the ingathering of the Jews from around the world coupled with an expected gigantic military battle in the Middle East.
Another alternative, however, was to abandon the claim and look elsewhere for a Messiah. This happened later on when another Messiah claimant appeared, namely, Bar Kokhba, during the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome in the mid 130s. But he failed to drive the Romans out and so never became a Messiah.
But there was a third innovative solution that occurred to some. Why not spiritualize the concept? Redefine the expectation? Paul chose this route, preparing the way for spiritualizing the concept of the Messiah. As we have noted, he focused on the Christ figure, not the Jesus of history. Christ is the Greek form for the Hebrew for “anointed one,” the root meaning of Messiah. That is fine, but there is more to the story than just that. By putting the word into Greek, Paul bounced the concept out of its original Jewish context into a Roman one. This had two significant consequences.
First, it removed its political overtones. In its original context, Israel’s Messiah was a political reformer. He’d play a prominent role in bringing about the independence and sovereignty of Israel. In the context of Paul’s time, this would mean eliminating the Romans. There would be other consequences, to be sure, a transformed world in which the righteous are rewarded for their heroic efforts, the wicked eliminated, and the messianic era of universal peace established. Paul’s view, however, was decidedly apolitical. It had nothing to do with replacing Romans or establishing an independent Jewish state.
Furthermore, Paul’s Christ image was that of a dying-rising savior God-human, the one with whom the individual believer becomes identified and through whom the believer becomes saved. Many passages in Paul’s letters demonstrated the intimate relationship Paul claimed a believer can have with Christ: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
The Christ assumed a cosmic dimension. This was expressed in Paul’s letters in several ways. In his Letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote the following of the Christ, a preexistent divine being, who became incarnate and who died and was raised again:
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5—8)
Plus, in Romans 8:3, Paul talks about how God sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.”
In 1 Corinthians, Paul waxed eloquently about how all will be redeemed in Christ who has defeated all enemies, including death (1 Corinthians 15:21—26). Believers, through identification with the Christ, will inherit eternal life. In so doing, Paul changed the concept of the Messiah. It was no longer that of a political leader who acts as a catalyst in bringing about world transformation. It was now that of a dying and rising savior sallying forth to do universal battle with all the forces of evil, including the power of death. The idea has been fundamentally altered.
Tom Harpur notes the larger dimension of the Christ figure in Paul’s thought:
Since Paul was, above all things, a communicator par excellence, he spoke to the people of his time in the mystical language they understood—the vernacular of the Mystery Religions.… All his language about being “in Christ” or having “Christ in you” reflects the current Hellenic theosophy and philosophy. It is really Orphic-Platonic-Mystery cultism, almost pure Hindu or Vedic yoga mysticism, with no immediate reference to the Gospel life of Jesus at all.4
The similarities were immediately apparent to opponents of the Christian religion as it came into prominence on the Roman stage, so much so that early apologists such as Justin Martyr and Origen had difficulty explaining the uniqueness of Paul’s vision. For some critics, Christianity was another of the old familiar mystery religion cults dressed up in a new name.
For Paul, the Christ was a preexistent being, “in the form of God,” who “emptied himself,” taking on “the form of a slave, being born in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6, 7). He talked about “gaining Christ” and how faith in Christ—not the Torah—created righteousness (Philippians 3:8—9). He wanted to “know Christ and the power of his resurrection,” sharing in his sufferings and death and participating in his resurrection, making him one of his own. In 1 Corinthians, Paul discussed the resurrection: “all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:24). Christ represented a major cosmic power. He will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed “every ruler and every authority and power” (1 Corinthians 15:24), including, finally, death itself. Christ, then, is the transformative power available to all who have faith in him. The focus of the Christ is upon rescuing humanity, offering eternal life to all who participate in his life—in his body and blood. More than human, Paul’s Christ is a divine being who existed prior to and after his earthly span of life.
In short, Paul’s view of the Christ removed the Jewish concept of the Messiah from its Jewish matrix and plunked it into a Gentile one. It had the advantage of being much easier to explain. For his Gentile audience, this different concept of the Messiah would not require Paul to conduct ancient history lessons before talking about the Christ. That is, with his view of the Christ, he would not have had to take potential converts through the history of Israel to explain why a Messiah was needed and what was expected. He would not, for instance, have had to explain the significance of having a descendant of David on the throne of Israel. His was an easier sell.
Politically, too, Paul would have had a less difficult time. He would not have had to confront the position that, in accordance with Jewish expectations for messianic times, Jerusalem and Israel would become the preeminent centers of world power and Gentiles would flock there to worship God. Gentiles living in Greece and Galatia, with loyalties to their own jurisdictions, might find that political view somewhat of a stretch.
Paul detached his new religion from Judaism. But it was not enough for the Christ Movement to win out over the rival Jesus Movement. It needed also to undermine Judaism itself, to erase, if it could, any vestige of that ancient religion. And so the attacks began. Paul led the way, with his rejection of Torah and his introduction of the dying-rising Christ figure, the savior. The communities that arose in the Mediterranean in the wake of Paul were increasingly communities of the Christ, emphasizing belief over behavior. While the daily lives of the people in these communities generally reflected the customs and practices of the greater world around them, their spiritual focus was entirely different. They focused on the Christ and sought to become one with his death and resurrection, mingling with his blood and body through the rite of Communion. This set them apart from their neighbors and brought them into conflict with the local agents of the emperor, whom they refused to worship. Some paid with their lives. For them, there was only one divinity: the Christ, the incarnate son of God.
As the community of the Christ grew in number and influence, it would find ways to address various smaller rivals. This included the Torah-observant Ebionites as well as the Gnostic Christians, who believed their spiritual insight and understanding to be more intense than that of the more powerful mainstream Christ movement. But Proto-Orthodoxy’s first priority was to purge their movement of Jewish practice and influence, and to denounce the validity of Jewish faith and tradition.
The assault had begun and would last for centuries. And it would quickly become personal.