The Origin of Paul's ReligionMachen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Religion
The Origin of Paul's Religion
Machen, J. Gresham (John Gresham)
Bible. Epistles of Paul -- Theology; Paul, the Apostle, Saint
This argument was developed particularly by Baur and Zeller and
their associates in the "Tübingen School." According to Baur, the
major epistles of Paul constitute the primary source of information
about the apostolic age; they should therefore be interpreted
without reference to any other source. When they are so interpreted,
they show that the fundamental fact of apostolic history was a
conflict between Paul on one side and the original apostles on the
other. The conflict, Baur maintained further, is particularly plain
in the Epistles to the Galatians and Corinthians, which emphasize
the complete independence of Paul with reference to the pillars
of the Jerusalem Church, and his continued opposition to the
efforts of Jewish Christians to bring the Gentiles into subjection
to the Jewish Law--efforts which must have been supported to some
extent by the attitude of the original apostles. This conflict,
Baur supposed further, continued up to the middle of the second
century; there was a Gentile Christian party appealing to Paul
and a Jewish Christian party appealing to Peter. Finally however,
Baur continued, a compromise was effected; the Pauline party gave
up what was really most distinctive in the Pauline doctrine of
justification, while the Petrine party relinquished the demand of
circumcision. The New Testament documents, according to Baur, are
to be dated in accordance with the position that they assume in
the conflict; those documents which take sides--which are strongly
anti-Pauline or strongly anti-Petrine--are to be placed early, while
those which display a tendency toward compromise are to be placed
late, at the time when the conflict was being settled. Such was the
"tendency-criticism" of Baur. By that criticism the Book of Acts
was dated well on in the second century, because it was thought to
display a tendency toward compromise--an "irenic tendency." This
tendency, Baur supposed, manifested itself in the Book of Acts in
a deliberate falsification of history; in order to bring about
peace between the Petrine and the Pauline parties in the Church,
the author of Acts attempted to show by a new account of the
apostolic age that Peter and Paul really were in perfect agreement.
To that end, in the Book of Acts, Paul is Petrinized, and Peter is
Paulinized; the sturdy independence of Paul, which actually kept
him long away from Jerusalem after his conversion, gives place,
in Acts, to a desire of contact with the Jerusalem Church, which
brought him early to Jerusalem and finally led him even to accept
for his Gentile converts, at the "Apostolic Council," a portion of
the ceremonial law. Peter, on the other hand, is represented in Acts
as giving expression at the Apostolic Council to Pauline sentiments
about the Law; and all through the book there is an elaborate and
unhistorical parallelism between Peter and Paul.
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