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
In the third place, the agitation of the Judaizers seems to have
died down during the third missionary journey. It appears, indeed,
at Corinth, according to the Corinthian Epistles, but seems there
to have lacked that insistence upon the keeping of the Law which
had made it so dangerous in Galatia. In the epistles of the
captivity--Colossians and Philemon, Ephesians, Philippians--it
appears, if at all, only in the obscure reference in Phil. iii.
2ff., which may relate to non-Christian Judaism rather than to
Jewish Christianity. This subsidence of the Judaizing activity is
difficult to understand if the benefits of the Jerusalem conference
had been annulled by a serious breach at Antioch.
Finally, the whole subsequent history of the Church is explicable
only if there was fundamental unity between Peter and Paul. Ever
since the formation of the Old Catholic Church at the close of the
second century the Church was founded upon the twin pillars of
Peter and Paul. How was this unity produced if in the apostolic
age there was fundamental disunion? The existence of this problem
was fully recognized by F. C. Baur, and the recognition of it
constitutes one element of greatness in Baur's work. But the
elaborate solution which Baur proposed has had to be abandoned. Baur
supposed that the harmony between Pauline and Petrine Christianity
was produced by a gradual compromise effected during the second
century. Subsequent investigation has pushed the harmony very
much further back. The unity between Peter and Paul appears, for
example, plainly expressed in the letter of Clement of Rome (about
95 A. D.), who appeals to the two great apostles as though both
were of recognized authority; it appears also in the first Epistle
of Peter, which even if not genuine is important as attributing
to Peter, as though the attribution were a matter of course, a
conception of the gospel thoroughly in harmony with that of Paul;
it appears in the early traditional account of John Mark, by which
Mark is made to be a follower of Peter (compare 1 Peter v. 13) and
to have received from Peter the substance of his Gospel, so that
when his cordial relations with Paul are remembered (Col. iv. 10;
Philem. 24) he constitutes an important link between Peter and
Paul. What is more important, however, than all details, is the
undoubted fact that before the end of the first century epistles
of Paul and genuine tradition about Jesus, which latter must at
first have been connected with the Jerusalem Church, appear side
by side as possessing high authority in the Church. Finally, the
testimony of the Book of Acts is now admitted to be at any rate very
much earlier than Baur supposed; and that testimony, so far as the
harmony between Paul and Peter is concerned, is unequivocal. Thus
the explanation which Baur proposed for the final healing of the
supposed breach between Peter and Paul is unsatisfactory. But no
other explanation has been discovered to take its place. The very
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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