The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (57 page)

2. Many scholars doubt that Paul was born a Roman citizen. For discussion as to how Paul might have become one, see R. Wallace and W. Williams, The Three
Worlds of Paul of Tarsus
(London, 1998), pp. 137–46. See also the important article by J. Barclay, “Paul Among Diaspora Jews: Anomaly or Apostate,”
Journal of the
Study of the New Testament
60 (1995): 89–120.

3. Barclay, “Paul Among Diaspora Jews,” p. 105, for the quotation on Paul’s Greek. On Paul’s links to the Essenes, M. Hengel puts it as follows:

Paul is akin to the Qumran writings in his basic eschatological dualist attitude, his sense of an imminent end and of the concealed presence of salvation, the eschatological gift of the spirit, which makes it possible to interpret scriptures in terms of the eschatological present, the predestination bound up with God’s election and the inability of human beings to secure salvation by themselves—a feature which was controversial in contemporary Judaism.

From “The Pre-Christian Paul” in J. Lieu, J. North and T. Rajak, eds.,
The Jews
Among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire
(London and New York, 1992), pp. 40–41. Paul was one of those people who was desperate to belong and to express his commitment. The similarities to the Essenes in his eschatology, his language, his commitment to celibacy and his attitudes to those who offend (see the Corinthian who lived with his stepmother, below) make it possible that he was a member of this sect before “conversion,” in much the same way as Augustine found a temporary resting place in Manicheism. It has to be stressed that there is no evidence for Paul’s involvement with the Essenes and most commentators do not even raise the issue.

4. See, for instance, the alternative chronologies in J. Becker,
Paul: Apostle to
the Gentiles, trans. O. C. Dean, Jr. (Louisville, 1993), chap. 2, and Jerome Murphy O’Connor, Paul, a Critical Life (Oxford, 1996), chap. 1.

5. The issue of the righteous Gentiles and Judaism is discussed in depth by Alan Segal, “Universalism in Judaism and Christianity,” in Troels Engbury-Pedersen, ed.,
Paul in His Hellenistic Context
(Edinburgh, 1994). On an inscription found at the city of Aphrodisias, possibly third century A.D., which records a list of benefactors from the Jewish community in the city, ninety Jews are named and alongside them sixty-five “god-fearers” (
theosebeis
). Nine of the “god-fearers” were members of the city council. This suggests, alongside material given in Acts, that “god-fearers” were not only numerous in the Jewish communities but also often influential members of the community. One might even argue that the “god-fearers” were a means through which the Jews mediated and sustained their position within the local community. See S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1993), p. 32, for details of the Aphrodisias inscription.

6. On Apollos, see O’Connor, Paul, pp. 276 and 281. The quotation from Barrett is taken from his
A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians
(London, 1971), p. 211.

7. Gronbech is quoted in J. D. Moores,
Westling with Rationality in Paul
(Cambridge, 1995), p. 1. “A rhetoric of the heart” is the view of E. Norden, quoted in Barclay, “Paul Among Diaspora Jews,” p. 105, where the quotation about Paul’s “rudimentary knowledge of Greek literature or philosophy” comes from.

8. S. Mitchell suggests that the “Unknown God” was theos hypsistos, who was described as the god “not admitting of a name, known by many names.” See Mitchell’s “The Cult of Theos Hypsistos,” in P. Athanassiadi and M. Frede, eds.,
Pagan Monotheism in Late Antiquity
(Oxford, 1999), p. 122.

9. See Barclay, “Paul Among Diaspora Jews,” p. 108. The quotation is also by Barclay (p. 114), drawing on the view of Richard Hays from the latter’s
Echoes of
Scripture in the Letters of Paul
(New Haven and London, 1989). A wide-ranging study of the relationship of Paul and Jewish apocalyptic teachings is to be found in M. C. de Boer, “Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology,” in John J. Collins, ed., The
Encyclopaedia of Apocalypticism,
vol. 1 (New York, 1998).

10. Sanders,
Paul,
p. 84. An excellent introduction to Paul’s relationship with Judaism is provided by W. D. Davies, “Paul from a Jewish Point of View,” in W. Horbury, W. D. Davies and J. Sturdy, eds., The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3 (Cambridge, 1999), chap. 21. The section on Paul and the Law (pp. 702–14) is especially good on Paul’s complex and ambiguous attitude to the Law.

11. See J. Macquarrie,
Jesus Christ in Modern Thought
(London and Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 55–68, for the debate in relation to Paul’s writings, and G. Vermes, chap. 4, “The Christ of Paul: Son of God and Universal Redeemer of Mankind,” in
The Changing Faces of Jesus
(London, 2000). See also the discussion in Frances Young, “A Cloud of Witnesses,” in J. Hick, ed.,
The Myth of God Incarnate,
2nd ed. (London, 1993), pp. 20–22.

12. See Vermes,
The Changing Faces of Jesus,
p. 85, for this idea. In the later second century, Melito, bishop of Sardis, followed up the idea, writing, “He [Jesus] carried the wood upon his shoulders and he was led up to be slain like Isaac by his father. But Christ suffered, whereas Isaac did not suffer; for he was the model of the Christ who was going to suffer.” Quoted in Robin Margaret Jensen,
Understanding
Early Christian Art
(London and New York, 2000), p. 146.

13. See Sanders,
Paul,
pp. 78–79, for the background to this idea. It has to be remembered that sacrifices were important social rituals that probably served to legitimize the killing of domestic animals. To see them as unnecessary acts of cruelty, as implied in many Christian critiques of sacrifice, is wrong. Animals had to be killed somehow if the community was to survive, and it can certainly be argued that Greek attitudes to domesticated animals were more sensitive than Christian ones. Richard Sorabji, in an essay titled “Rationality” in M. Frede and G. Striker, eds.,
Rationality in
Greek Thought
(Oxford, 1996), pp. 328–30, cites the pagan philosopher Porphyry’s taunt that Christ was not much of a saviour as he was quite happy to transfer demons into the Gadarene swine, which then galloped over a cliff to their deaths. This was not the issue, replied Augustine (
The City of God
1:20): animals “did not belong within the community of just dealing”; and Christ was making the point that it was superstitious to refrain from killing animals. Augustine later went on to draw on Stoicism in order to argue that as animals lack a rational mind they have no rights and are subordinate to the needs of man. Augustine is cited by Thomas Aquinas in his own defence of the killing of animals. For the development of these ideas in a later historical context, see K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes
in England, 1500–1800
(London, 1983). It was the Enlightenment that introduced the idea that animals have a “right” not to feel pain. (Some relevant quotes relating to this new approach, including one from Jeremy Bentham, are in Thomas,
Man and the
Natural World,
pp. 179–80, while the works of Peter Singer should be addressed for a deeper understanding of the philosophical issues.)

14. Chaps. 6 and 7 of Sanders,
Paul,
provide a full discussion. The original Greek word for faith (
pistis
) can be translated as meaning both “firm assurance” and “that which gives firm assurance.” Hebrews 11:1 gives a definition of faith which was to be particularly influential: “the assurance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen.” A discussion of the various nuances of the word “faith” can be found in C. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 110–13, and the complexities of the word are also explored by N. Wolterstorff in his article “Faith” in the
Routledge Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
(London and New York, 2000). Wolterstorff writes:

Of what genus is faith a species? Is it a species of believing propositions on say-so? Is it a species of loyalty to some person or cause? Is it a species of trusting someone? Is it a species of believing what someone has promised? Is it a species of “concern”? Is it a virtue of a certain sort? Is it a species of knowledge?

Enough has been said here to show that it will have different meanings in different contexts and therefore needs to be used with some caution.

15. Quoted in A. Cameron,
Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire
(Berkeley and London, 1991), p. 28.

16. This is a passage used by those who argue that Paul did have some knowledge of Stoicism—the Stoics had put forward proofs for the existence of God and Paul appears to be assuming that they are valid ones; C. Stead, Philosophy in
Christian Antiquity,
pp. 115–16. Compare, for instance, Paul in Romans 1:19–20: “What can be known about God is plain to men for God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made,” with the Stoic philosopher Lucillus quoted by Cicero in his
On the Nature of the Gods
2, iii, c. 45 B.C.: “The point seems scarcely to need affirming. What can be so obvious and clear, as we gaze up at the sky and observe the heavenly bodies, as that there is some divine power of surpassing intelligence by which they are ordered?”

17. This statement is quoted in John Hick, “Interpretation and Reinterpretation in Religion,” in S. Coakley and D. Pailin, eds., The Making and Remaking
of Christian Doctrine: Essays in Honour of Maurice Wiles
(Oxford, 1993). “The majority of human beings, most theologians agreed, do end up in hell, including, the Council of Florence (1439–45) insisted, all Jews, heretics, and schismatics unless they become Catholic before they die.” This is from the entry on “hell” in A. Hastings, ed.,
The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought
(New York and Oxford, 2000). This problem of inclusion versus exclusion is well dealt with in G. Stroumsa,
Barbarian Philosophy: The Religious Revolution of Early Christianity
(Tubingen, 1999), chap. 1, “Early Christianity as Radical Religion.” On the debate over whether in Paul’s letters all will be saved, see the section “Does Paul Believe All Human Beings Will Be Saved in the End?” in de Boer’s article “Paul and Apocalyptic Eschatology,” p. 371.

18. As J. D. Moores puts it,
Wrestling with Rationality,
p. 31, Paul’s logic is “so wayward that we may wonder whether Paul is not just ironically exposing the irrelevance of logical argument.”

19. Quoted in Robert Markus,
Gregory the Great and His World
(Cambridge, 1997), p. 38.

20. This may seem a sweeping statement, but it is hard to know where else the famous conflict originated. It is perhaps possible to take it back to Plato, but Paul’s condemnation of logic and philosophy is so violent, his statements came to have such authority and the rejection of traditional philosophy, including science, is so marked in the Christian tradition that Paul is the obvious starting point. While Paul’s concept of faith implies openness to God’s revelation, the concept shifted and expanded as the institutional church and its hierarchy developed, so that having “faith” meant accepting “specific articles of faith” that had been “communicated to Christ and mediated through the church” (see the article on “faith” by Avery Dulles in Hastings, ed., The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought), an interpretation that consolidated the faithful as acceptors who were not required to question articles of faith for themselves. In fact, it was seen as a virtue that they did not. This shift, which is related to the growth of authority in the church, will be discussed further in the next chapter.

21. See Hans Belting,
Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image Before the
Era of Art,
trans. E. Jephcott (Chicago and London, 1994). This is a penetrating study of the art of icons and the contexts in which images were appreciated or abhorred. While early Christianity put a great deal of energy into distancing itself from Judaism, the Jewish rejection of idols continued to give Judaism some value among Christians. The theologian Origen, for instance, wrote in his
Contra Celsum
(V, 43): “The Jews do possess some deeper wisdom, not only more than the multitude, but also than those who seem to be philosophers, because the philosophers in spite of their impressive philosophical teachings fall down to idols and daemons, while even the lowest Jews look only to the supreme God.”

22. The summary of the Jewish writer Josephus, quoted in chap. 10, “Behaviour,” in Sanders,
Paul.

23. One needs to get away from the idea that there was a sexual free-for-all in the Greek and Roman world before the coming of Christianity. See, as an introduction to this issue, M. Nussbaum, “Platonic Love and Colorado Love: The Relevance of Ancient Greek Norms to Modern Sexual Controversies,” in R. B. Louden and P. Schollmeier, eds., The Greeks and Us: Essays in Honor of Arthur W. H. Adkins (Chicago and London, 1999), pp. 168–223. However, it is also clear that there was widespread sexual exploitation of women, particularly slaves by their owners and others. See also chap. 18, “Sex, Love and Marriage in Pagan Philosophy and the Use of Catharsis,” in R. Sorabji,
Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic
Agitation to Christian Temptation
(Oxford, 2000).

24. For Paul’s contribution to Christian views on sexuality, see P. Brown, The
Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity
(New York, 1988; London, 1989), pp. 44–57.

25. G. Stroumsa,
Barbarian Philosophy,
especially chap. 1, “Early Christianity as Radical Religion”; the quotation comes from p. 25.

26. Few questions can be more complex than that of the relationship between emotion and will and the question of whether the self is divided (as Plato believed), which is why I hesitate in making too many generalizations here. (In
The Republic
444 B, Plato talks of “the injustice, indiscipline . . . and vice of all kinds” that are the result of “internal quarrels” between the three parts of the soul.) It is a mark of the intellectual sophistication of ancient thought that the question was tackled in the depth it was, particularly by the Stoics. See, as a starter, chap. 20, “Emotional Conflict and the Divided Self” in Sorabji’s important
Emotion and Peace of Mind.
In his chapters on Christianity (22 onwards), Sorabji shows how in a Christian context “bad thoughts” came to be seen as the intrusion of the devil. The question then became how one dealt with the thought—did one linger over it or enjoy it? If so, one had already committed sin. Compare Matthew 5:27: “if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The possibility of committing evil when no outward sign of any evil action is apparent is an important component of the Christian conception of sin.