Paul in the contemporary world

There can be no doubt that, over 2000 years, Paul of Tarsus has had an influence - both positive and negative - over millions of people.

Those who have seen Paul as a positive influence have included Augustine 354-430) in the Fourth Century and Martin Luther (1483-1546) in the Sixteenth Century (and from him the whole Protestant Reformation with all that involved). In the Twentieth Century we could include the Theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968)[1], and the philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)[2] among those who were strongly influenced

But many others have seen Paul in a negative light and seen Paul’s influence on Christianity as pernicious:

J S Mill:

St. Paul, a declared enemy to this Judaical mode of interpreting the doctrine and filling up the scheme of his Master, equally assumes a pre-existing morality, namely, that of the Greeks and Romans; and his advice to Christians is in a great measure a system of accommodation to that; even to the extent of giving an apparent sanction to slavery.[3]

Kierkegaard:

What Martin Luther in his reformation failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the religion of Paul, not of Christ. Paul threw the Christianity of Christ away, completely turning it upside down, making it just the opposite of the original proclamation of Christ[4] (Kierkegaard, The Journals.)

Nietzsche

In Paul was embodied the antithetical type to the ‘bringer of glad tidings’, the genius of hatred, of the vision of hatred, of the inexorable logic of hatred. What did this dysangelist not sacrifice to his hatred! The redeemer above all: he nailed him to his Cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death, the meaning and the right of the entire Gospel – nothing was left once this hate-obsessed false-coiner had grasped what alone he could make use of[5].

However over the last 30 years there has been a renewed interest in Paul from a variety of perspectives – Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and non-believers. These include Calvin J Roetzel, a Professor of Religious Studies in Minnesota[6], Daniel Boyarin, Professor of Talmudic Culture at the University of California[7];  Stanislas Breton, a French Theologian and Philosopher[8]; and Giorgio Agamben[9], an Italian Political Philosopher.

This new interest has been motivated by at least two ethical and philosophical concerns concerns.

The first is, in what we may call a post-metaphysical or secular age, with the decline in influence of Christianity, what happens to the moral stance that, in the west was conveyed, however imperfectly, through the Jewish and Christian traditions? Is capitalism, self-interest and identity politics, whether from the right or left, all that remains.

The second is that, because we live in a globalized and cosmopolitan world, different religious traditions can occupy a similar or overlapping territory. Will they be, as Huntington suggested in The Clash of Civilisations at war with each other or find some way to co-exist[10].

The approach to Paul’s writings adopted here will be a literary and philosophic one, treating his letters as one person’s attempt to interpret what the message of Jesus involved. This will involve placing his writings in their historical and social context.

Conservative Christians would reject any approach which treated Christianity as one religion among many and did not treat every word of the Bible as given by God. But for them to do so involves multiple denials. It denies human fallibility -the doctrine of original sin - and is a denial that there are contradictions in the text. It is such contradictions allow people to selectively quote those passages that reinforce their own preconceptions and pass over those that say the opposite.

The “Jesus event”

To understand what motivated Paul requires some understanding of what took place in Palestine in the few years prior to his Damascus experience – the teaching and the death of Jesus. What was it about this period that had such a profound effect on so many people in the years that followed the crucifixion, and within a couple of years was also able to influence Paul?

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century there were attempts to discover the ‘historical Jesus’. This did lead to a better understanding of the sequence in which the Gospels were written and an exploration of what common sources they may have had, but scholars also  came to realise that these accounts were composed between 30 and 70 years following the crucifixion when interpretation and myth-making was already taking place. Paul’s letters on the other hand are first-hand accounts of events in the decades immediately following the crucifixion.

Three factors contribute to the special nature of what i have called the ‘Jesus event”..

The first is that it took place in a time and region preceded by a thousand years of religious development, and it was also a time of some ferment in religious understanding, as evident in such groups as the Essenes revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Jesus was first and foremost a Jew with a Jewish concept of God formed through Judaism. At the same time the Jewish nation was having to adapt to Roman rule which culminated in the disastrous Jewish revolts of 66-70 CE

Secondly those teachings and actions of Jesus we have evidence of - in teachings like the Sermon on the Mount; in his actions towards the outcasts of society; and in parables such as those of the Good Samaritan - presented a radical ethical position and in many ways a critique of any established religion by simplifying it to an ethical demand.

Finally, and most importantly, is the impact this life had on his intimate followers following his crucifixion. They were convinced that Jesus’s presence remained so strong that he must in some way still be alive. Paul says in 1 Corinthians:15

... he was raised to life on the third day … he appeared to Cephas, and afterwards to the Twelve … in the end he appeared even to me.

Paul had almost certainly never met the living Jesus, and initially tried to destroy the Jesus movement, but somehow, two years later on the road to Damascus, became convinced to join this same movement. During most of the First Century, including during Paul’s period of preaching, ‘Christianity’ did not exist as a separate religion. It was rather a movement within Judaism which saw Jesus as the promised Messiah.

The Jewish Diaspora and Greek speaking Jews.

Following his Damascus experience, Paul choose to be the missionary to the world outside Judea. From around 300 BC, following the conquests of Alexander the Great, Jews began settling in communities around the Mediterranean either as slaves, soldiers or traders. Many cities in the Hellenic Empire had significant Jewish populations. In the First Century BCE it has been estimated that in the Egyptian city of Alexandria 40% of the population was Jewish. There were major Jewish centres through what is now modern Turkey, in Corinth and Salonika (Thessalonica in Paul’s time) as well as in Rome and even as far as Spain[11].

To meet the spiritual needs of these Diaspora Jews, in the second century BCE, in the city of Alexandria, the Jewish Scriptures were translated into Greek. This translation became known as the Septuagint because, according to legend, 72 Hebrew scholars translated the text in 72 days. It was in the contemporary Greek of the time and became the text for Greek speaking Jews as well as the early Christians. When Paul refers to texts from the Jewish Scriptures he quotes from the Septuagint. The Old Testament as it appears in the Christian Bible is based on this Greek translation.

Paul’s letters as sources for early Christianity

In trying to understand the effect of the Jesus Event on Paul and to explore what contemporary relevance he might have we must first evaluate the relevance of what are claimed to be his letters as sources.  

We must begin by separating the genuine and non-genuine letters. Most scholars consider only seven or eight of the thirteen letters attributed to Paul to have been actually written by him[12]. Some of the letters falsely attributed to him could have been written over a hundred years later. Nor are the letters presented in chronological order in the Bible – they are basically arranged in order of length, with Romans, the last of the genuine letters, being put as the first, straight after Acts. An identification of the genuine Pauline letters is important because many of the charges of Paul as a misogynist are based on the non-genuine letters.

The surviving letters were only written over a ten-year period, when Paul was in his fifties (c.48 CE-60 CE) Paul had already been preaching for close to twenty years. He does make passing reference in the letters to earlier events in his life such as his upbringing, his persecution of the Jesus sect and his conversion.

As indicated previously, the earliest letters were written only 20 years after the crucifixion. Many people who knew Jesus personally were still alive and Paul reflects that world, including meeting with some of Jesus’ disciples. In contrast, the earliest of the Gospels, Mark, although based on earlier oral and written traditions, was composed another 20 years later, almost forty years after the crucifixion; Luke and Matthew were composed after another 20 years had passed – around 85-90 CE. Paul does not seem to be aware of these, and in all of Paul’s letters there are only two possible references to the words of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.

Paul’s letters are therefore the earliest extant written evidence for the initial developments that eventually led to Christianity and in these letters Paul refers back to the period immediately following the crucifixion.

The letters are also of a quite different form to the Gospels. They were written to specific communities addressing specific problems in those communities, and, like an overheard mobile conversation, we have only one side of the story. With the partial exception of Romans they do not provide a systematic theology but try to explain what the message of Jesus would be in the particular situation faced by a specific community.

One must also take into account that during Paul’s life, ‘Christianity’ did not exist as a separate religion. There was, rather, a ‘Jesus movement’ within Judaism – Jews who actually saw Jesus as the promised Messiah. For the first two centuries there were many different interpretations of what the life and death of Jesus meant and it was not until the start of the Third Century that decisions were made about which sources to include and exclude in the canon and it was not until the Nicene Creed of 325 (and updated in 381) that one particular interpretation took hold.

Finally, there is the danger of utilising the ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ to fill those gaps in Paul’s life that are not covered in the letters. Acts was probably composed around 70-80 CE but not a single passage shows either knowledge of Paul’s letters or makes any use of them.

Greek speaking Jews

Paul was Jew of the diaspora – a Jew for whom Greek, rather than Hebrew, was his native language.

According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul was born in Tarsus, a city in the South East corner of modern Turkey. Paul was a Greek speaker and wrote his letters in Greek but makes little reference to what would have been learnt in a classical Greek education. Paul tells us that he was brought up as an Orthodox Jew; he probably had his training through the Greek language in Jerusalem itself.

In his letter to those at Philippi he claims that he had all the external features of Judaism:

… circumcised on my eighth day, Israelite by race, of the tribe of Benjamin, A Hebrew born and bred; in my attitude to the law, a Pharisee; in pious zeal a persecutor of the Church.[13]

In the first two years following Jesus’ crucifixion Paul, like many other Pharisees that Jesus had criticised, considered this ‘Jesus movement’ a Jewish heresy that should be wiped out. He supplies his own account of his initial hostility to the Jesus movement:

You have heard what my manner of life was when I was still a practising Jew; how savagely I persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it; and how in the practice of our national religion I was outstripping many of my Jewish contemporaries in my boundless devotion to the traditions of my ancestors.[14] 

After helping attack members of the Jesus Movement in Jerusalem, Paul was on his way to continue this work in Damascus. His change in attitude on the way to Damascus was, I argue, not a consequence of rejecting Judaism, but one of seeing the message of Jesus as the culmination of Judaism. His experience on the road to Damascus was a transformation rather than a conversion.

Instead of going back to Jerusalem Paul went to what was then called Arabia – the area of modern Jordan. It seems he wanted to carve out his own field of mission outside the influence of Jerusalem. He later returned to Damascus and around 37 CE finally went to Jerusalem to meet the apostle Peter.

The next seventeen years were spent in the area covered by modern Turkey and Greece. Around 50 CE he returned to Jerusalem a second time where a Council was held of all the leading preachers. According to Paul it was ‘acknowledged that I had been entrusted with the Gospel for the Gentiles as surely as Peter had been entrusted with the Gospel for the Jews.[15]’

This sense of common purpose between Paul with Gentile Christians and Peter with the Jewish Christians was broken two years later when both Peter and Paul were in Antioch. Peter had been sharing meals with Gentile Christians, but when representatives of Jewish Christians came, he stopped doing this. Paul accused him of hypocrisy[16].

 Paul through his surviving letters

The first letter of Paul that we have was written to the community at Thessalonica some 20 years following his conversion, and around the time of his meetings with Peter. Thessalonica (also known as Salonika) had a significant diaspora population, and by its location was on a key trade route between the Middle East and Europe. Paul was in Athens and had sent his companion Timothy to find out how the Thessalonians were. The letter is his response on Timothy’s return: Paul is glad that Timothy ‘brings good news of their faith and love’ and that they ‘always think kindly of us’.

There are moral demands:

You should be holy; you must abstain from fornication; each one of you must learn to gain mastery over his body, to hallow and honour it, not giving way to lust like the pagans[17]

But there are also words about how to behave towards each other. Paul writes that ‘you are yourselves taught by God to love one another’. And yet you can do better still:

Keep calm and look after your own business, and … work with your hands … so that you may command the respect of those outside you’re your own number, and at the same time never be in want.[18]

He continues later:

You must live at peace among yourselves. And we would urge you … to admonish the careless, encourage the faint-hearted, support the weak and be very patient with them all. See to it that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but always aim at doing the best you can for each other and for all men.[19]

The early communities believed that a return of Jesus, when Jesus would gather together all the Christians, was imminent. Some in Thessalonica were concerned about those who had already died. Paul makes two points: the first is that no one knows the date or time that this ‘gathering’ will occur but when it does happen, both the living and the dead will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air

Paul’s next letter – to the Galatians - is considered the most ‘Pauline’ of the letters and is the one by which others are often judged for their authenticity. There is a great deal in the letter about Paul’s own life and the position he takes in opposition to those in Jerusalem. This reflects the conflict with ‘Jewish Christians’ in Jerusalem and Antioch, who maintained the need for circumcision.

Paul is obviously frustrated by the Galatian community. He calls them “You stupid Galatians” because they are listening to false teachers. He claims that those ‘before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly displayed upon his cross’ must have been ‘bewitched’.

When God gives you the Spirit and works miracles among you, why is this? Is it because you keep the law, or is it because you have faith in the gospel message. Look at Abraham: he put his faith in God and that faith was counted to him as righteousness.[20]

Paul then supports his case by using very selective quotations from the Jewish Bible. While it is evidence that he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Septuagint, he ignores any context of the phrases he chooses

He puts two extracts together, one from Genesis, where God says to Abraham

I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make your name so great that it will be used in blessings[21]

And one from Habakkuk, written at the time of the Babylonian exile. The prophet is wanting to know when justice, righteousness and peace will come:

The reckless will be unsure of himself while the righteous man will live by being faithful[22]

Paul’s underlying argument is that “The Law” which formed the basis of a Jewish Life was a ‘kind of tutor in charge of us until Christ should come when we would be justified through faith.’ But from this he draws a radical conclusion:

There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freeman, male or female: for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.[23]

Major places in the life of Paul

Paul’s next letter was to the community in Corinth. Corinth was a rich city located on the isthmus separating mainland Greece from the Peloponnese. Paul’s first visit to Corinth was around 49-51

He met Aquila, a tentmaker, who had been expelled from Rome because of an edict against Jews passed by the emperor Claudius. Paul lived in Corinth with Aquila and his wife and also worked as a tentmaker. Paul began preaching in the Synagogue – an indication that this was still considered a Jewish message - but because of opposition there conducted his services in a home nearby. After a couple of years he had built up a strong community there and moved to Ephesus.

From Ephesus Paul gets reports that new preachers have moved into Corinth and that there are divisions and quarrels between various sects. He writes: “Each of you is saying “I am Paul’s man’ or ‘I am for Appollos, ‘I follow Peter’ or ‘I am Christ’s’’. He responds: ‘Surely Christ has not been divided among you? Was it Paul who was crucified for you?[24]’

Paul has two additional concerns. The first is that some people parade their wealth and social status and isolate poorer members of the community: ‘when you meet as a congregation you fall into sharply divided groups …[and]  are so contemptuous of the church that you shame its poorer members’[25]

His second concern is that is for those who consider themselves on a higher spiritual plane. Some of these feel that because they are already saved they can now do what they like. Others claim to have esoteric gifts such as speaking in tongues. Paul has his suspicions about this:

Even with inanimate things that produce sounds – a flute, say, or a lyre – unless their notes mark definite intervals, how can you tell what tune is being played? … In the same way if your ecstatic utterance yields no precise meaning, how can anyone tell what you are saying? You will be talking into the air.[26]

Paul argues that something is far more important than any of the gifts. ‘I may dole out all I possess, even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love I am none the better.’ He then provides the attributes of love:

Love is patient; love is kind end envies no one. Love is never boastful nor conceited nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance.[27]

 The last surviving letter of Paul, written to the communities at Rome, differs markedly from all the others. It was written to groups that had neither been set up or visited by Paul. Its purpose was not, like the other letters,  to tackle particular problems but was rather to be the means for Paul to introduce himself to the communities at Rome. From there he planned move on Spain

The end result of these factors is that Romans is the letter in which Paul most fully outlines his theology and is the letter from which Martin Luther in the sixteenth century or Karl Barth in the twentieth turned gained their inspiration. However the basic messages from the other letters are all repeated here.

The first is again the message there is neither Jew nor Gentile, but both are ‘justified by faith’:

Do you suppose God is the God of the Jews alone? Is he not God of Gentiles also? Certainly, of Gentiles also, if it is true that God is one. And he will therefore justify both the circumcised in virtue of their faith, and the uncircumcised through their faith. Does this mean that we are using faith to undermine law? By no means: we are placing law itself on a firmer footing.[28]

The second is the role of the crucifixion and resurrection:

We know that the man we once were has been crucified with Christ, for the destruction of the sinful self … But if we thus died with Christ, we believe that we shall also come to life with him.[29]

The third is the role of love for others, which overrides any law:

He who loves his neighbour has satisfied every claim of the law. For the commandments, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet, and any commandment there may be, are all summed up in the one rule, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ Love cannot wrong a neighbour, therefore the whole law is summed up in love.[30]

This is one of the few occasions where Paul seems to be making direct reference to the recorded sayings of Jesus. When a Pharisee, in order to trick him, asked Jesus “What is the greatest commandment in the Law” he answered:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.” That is the greatest commandment. It comes first. The second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” Everything in the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.[31]

In this letter Paul also supports women taking a leading role in the Church. Those who in the Catholic and some Evangelical Churches who oppose the ordination of women quote what purports to be a letter by Paul to Timothy:

A woman must be a learner, listening quietly and with due submission. I do not permit a woman to be a teacher, nor must women domineer over man; she should be quiet. For Adam was created first, and Eve afterwards; and it was not Adam who was deceived; it was the woman who, yielding to deception, fell into sin.[32]

However scholars date Timothy to around 85 CE, 25 years after Paul. This should be compared with what Paul says in Romans, that is universally accepted as a genuine letter. In its conclusion Paul says:

I commend to you Phoebe, a fellow-Christian who holds office in the Congregation at Cenchrae [a suburb of Corinth]. Give her, in the fellowship of the Lord, a welcome worthy of God’s people, and stand by her in any business in which she may need your help, for she has herself been a good friend to many, including myself.[33]

Paul concludes his letter by saying that he feels his work in Greece and Asia Minor is concluded and he can satisfy his ‘longing for many years to visit you on my way to Spain’[34]. The mention of Spain is evidence how far Christianity had spread within 30 years. However he tells them that, before visiting Rome, he is going to Jerusalem to pass on donations to the church raised by those in Asia Minor.

However, this visit to Jerusalem resulted in the end of these plans. Like Jesus before him, Paul got caught up in the turmoil of Jewish and Roman politics. Jews opposed to him in Jerusalem had him arrested [35] and he ends up in Rome as a prisoner under house arrest. The final sentences of Acts says that “he stayed there two full years at his own expense … proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching the facts about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and without hindrance.’ The Biblical account ends here, and for when and how he died we can only rely on legends first present some 100 years later.

After Paul

For the next eighty years or so there is practically no mention of Paul with the notable exception of Acts, which could not have been written until at least 100 CE[36]. A N Wilson argues that the Gospels themselves ‘grew up in the controversial milieu which Paul had done more than anyone else to ferment’[37], that is, he argues, a concept of Paul,  such as that of an atoning sacrifice or his attitude to the pharisees were incorporated into what were originally narratives of a charismatic preacher who met a cruel death.

The first person to focus on Paul’s ideas, around the middle of the second century was Marcion (c.85-c.165 CE), a shipbuilder turned theologian, living by the Black Sea. Marcion promoted the ordination of women as bishops and presbyters but what brought him in conflict with the established Church was his rejection of the God of the Old Testament and his contrasting him with the Christian God. He was excommunicated for heresy.

One consequence of the Marcion controversy was to finalise the steps by which the New Testament Canon was created, selecting only those gospels and letters that were at that time considered to be ‘authentic’ to be included in the New Testament. Many alternative Gospels, such as those of Thomas, James and Mary were rejected, and John’s Gospel, despite being a later and more philosophic interpretation than the Synoptic Gospels (Mark, Luke and Matthew) was included. In reaction to Marcion’s anti-Semitism, the decision was made to include the Jewish Bible as part of the Canon. The present arrangement was finalised towards the end of the Second Century

The genuine letters of Paul show that at all times Paul considered himself a Jew, albeit as Daniel Boyarin describes him, a radical Jew.

Paul was radical in three ways:

1.       For him religion was not tied to a nation, a race, a language or even a ceremonial custom such as circumcision. If there was a truth in the message it was a truth for all of humanity.

2.       He was also radical in his re-discovery that there was something more important than a legalistic approach, crudely expressed as ‘an eye for an eye’; rather in the words of Psalm 25, ‘Remember Lord, thy tender care and thy love unfailing, shown from ages past’[38]

3.       In some mysterious way this was connected with the life and death of a Nazarene, whom, as far as we know, Paul only knew second hand.

Paul’s genuine letters, combined with sayings of Jesus as recorded in the Synoptic gospels reveal  what we and the Churches often  lose sight of and that is the radical ethical transformation that Jesus spoke about. The novelist Christos Tsiolkas conveys this most vividly in his novel Damascus[39] where he contrasts the impact of the message of early Christianity with the brutality of the Roman world

But is this relevant to today? What concern can one have with Christianity if one is a humanist or atheist; an anarchist or socialist?

Many of these movements have been attempts to put the Christian message of the equal value of each individual into a non-metaphysical context while maintaining and in some ways refining and updating these values. Democracy itself is an attempt, however imperfect, to respect the uniqueness of each individual and is based on a respect and trust, if sometime misplaced, on our fellow citizens.

In the English-speaking world, our modern secular society was itself a creation of the various Christian denominations who came to believe that what they had in common was far more important than the particular beliefs that separated that separated them. They separated religion and state in order to preserve the inner truth of their belief.

The paradox of this is found in the United States where, despite it being Constitutionally secular state, different forms of religious belief continue to have a powerful influence on society.

But just as importantly people of faith still find in their community and practice the understanding and strength to keep these values alive. Sure, there are hypocrites inside religions and who stand condemned by Paul’s message, just as there are hypocrites outside, but there are also Christians like Tim Costello and Desmond Tutu who draw strength from their belief to re-invigorate their society. I could also mention Ross Gittins whose approach to economics clearly and concern with equality and honesty reflects his Salvation Army background.

A fourth person, who rejected Christianity, and saw himself as a philosophic Anarchist is Jeremy Dixon. He came to public attention in 2019 after the trial of the man who raped and murdered his daughter, Eurydice.  He had been her sole parent, after his wife died of a heroin overdose.

In a public statement after the trial he expressed forgiveness for the accused:

“What I would wish for Jaymes Todd and what I believe Eurydice would wish is that he gets better and realises what he has done,” Mr Dixon said.

“I extend my sincere sympathies for those who love him. It is a terrible tragedy all round.”[40] He demonstrated more of the values that Paul spoke of than many religious leaders.

Among women who continue to be inspired there is Dorothy Day. Born in 1897 was an American socialist activist who converted to Catholicism and co-founded the radical newspaper ‘The Catholic Worker’. Sister Veronica Brady was an active and much respected member of ISAA who was prepared to speak out about what she felt wrong about her own Church. Brooke Prentis[41] is an Aboriginal activist, a qualified company director and working as a chartered accountant. She had a long struggle with her Church being too ‘white’ until she discovered that she could unite her Aboriginality and her Christianity and see Christianity through Indigenous eyes

There is, in all of this a message for today. Paul had to confront a situation that has some similarities with what confronts all religions today. What part does your belief play in a society where other sets of beliefs exist? For Paul  the effect on him of the Jesus Event was to discover what was the core of his own Judaism – that of love – as opposed to basing your belief on legalism and traditions such as circumcision.

For Paul this message was also relevant to a citizen of the Graeco-Roman world, whether they were a Jew or not. For Paul, if a God exists – this God is not owned by any particular human interpretation. Such a God is the God of the non-Jew as well as the Jew, or in today’s world the God of the Muslim, Christian or Hindu. Whatever concept of ‘God’ people might have s/he must be universal.

In England the Reformation was followed by periods of Protestant and Catholic political ascendancy, with cruelties inflicted by both. However by the Nineteenth Century, Anglican, Catholics and Dissenters were able to come together despite their doctrinal differences and recognise that what united them was Paul’s doctrine of Love. This was of course in this particular facilitated by their sharing of a common language and culture.

It will be more difficult in the contemporary world. All religions: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are each intertwined with their quite separate cultural beliefs, traditions and history and in some cases with additional deep internal conflicts, such as the Sunni/Shia split in Islam which of course had its own brutal counterpart in  the Catholic Protestant split.

In the best of all religions love has played a central role. The Hebrew word hesed occurs regularly  in the Psalms and the Prophets as an attribute of God and in the King James Version is translated as ‘Lovingkindness’: ’Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.’[42]. Paul uses the Greek word agape as opposed to two other words for love: eros and philos

The great Islamic Philosopher Ibn Sina 980-1037 (known in the West as Avicenna) wrote ‘A treatise on Love’[43] and love plays a central role in Sufism. An Islamic writer Idries Shah describes what love means for a Sufi:

If man thinks that love only signifies what he has so far felt, he will veil himself from any experience of real love. If however, he has actually felt real love, he will not make the mistake of generalizing about it so as to identify it only with physical love or the love of attraction.[44]

A significant step forward in Muslim-Christian relations was an open letter signed by leading Muslims called ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’ date 13 October 2007[45]. One of the central tenets of this was the conviction that Islam shared Paul’s message: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ Love cannot wrong a neighbor, therefore the whole law is summed up in love.’

A corresponding word in Hinduism is bhakti, which incorporates meanings of love and devotion. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says to Arjuna:

Those devotees are very dear to Me who are free from malice toward all living beings, who are friendly, and compassionate. They are free from attachment to possessions and egotism, equipoised in happiness and distress, and ever-forgiving. They are ever-contented, steadily united with Me in devotion, self-controlled, firm in conviction, and dedicated to Me in mind and intellect.[46]

Unfortunately so much that masquerades as ‘religion’ today counteracts this message of ‘Loving kindness’ Theocratic Islamic States persecute Sufis because they are a threat to their existence. A United States President can order an invasion of a country that results in the deaths of some 400,000[47]. In Australia, many of the major feature writers of The Australian proclaim the need to return to the values of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ religion and ‘Western Civilisation’ while denying the evidence of climate change or justice for refugees[48] and Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large can falsely claim that Scott Morrison won his election on ‘moral values’[49] when in fact it was won on financial self-interest with the continuaitn of Negative Gering and Franking credits.

An American essayist, Pia Tolentino expressed what remained after she turned away from institutional religion:

Christianity formed my deepest instincts: it gave me a leftist worldview, an obsession with everyday morality, and understanding of having been born in a compromised situation, and a need to continually investigate my own ideas about what it means to be good[50].

Paul wrote: ‘In a word there are three things that last for ever: faith, hope and love: but the greatest of them all is love.’[51] ‘Faith’ here does not mean a particular set of beliefs – it means a moral confidence and moral integrity that should not be undermined by beliefs or creeds.

[1] Karl Barth,Der Rȍmerbrief 1918. Second Ed 1922 and published in English in 1933

[2]Hannah Arendt The Life of the Mind Harcourt NY, 1978 part 2 pp 63-72

[3] J S Mill, On Liberty, 2nd Edition JW Parker and Sons, London, 1859 p 82

[4] Quoted in Douglas J Del Tondo, Jesus’ Words on Salvation, Infinity, no place of publication, 2008 p 540. Also http://30ce.com/paulstatements.htm  accessed 9/12/2019

[5] Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ (trans R J Hollingdaale), Penguin, 1978 p 154

[6] Calvin J Roetzel, Paul a Jew on the Margins, Westminster John Knox Press, Kentucky 2003

[7] Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, University of California Press, 1994

[8] Stanislas Breton, A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul, (Trans  Joseph N. Ballan) Columbia University Press NY 2011

[9] Giorgio Agamben, The Time that Remains: a Commentary on Romans

[10] Samuel P. Huntington The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

[11] Paul speaks of his plans to go to Spain in Romans 15:23-24

[12] For a discussion of the evidence see Gunther Bornkamm, Paul (Translated by D M g Stalker), Hodder an Stoughton, London 1975 pp 241-243

[13] Philippians 3:4-6  (All translations, unless stated otherwise, are from the New English Bible, Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, 1970)

[14] Galatians 1:13-14

[15] Galatians 2:7-8

[16] Galatians 2:11-13

[17] I Thessalonians 4:3-5

[18] I Thessalonians 4:11:12

[19] I Thessalonians 5:14-15

[20] Galatians 3:1-4

[21] Genesis 12:2-3

[22] Habakkuk 2:4

[23] Galatians 3:28

[24] 1 Corinthians 1: 11-14

[25] 1 Corinthians 11:32

[26] 1 Corinthians 14:7-11

[27] 1 Corinthians 13:3-7

[28] Romans 3: 29-31

[29] Romans 6:6-9

[30] Romans 13: 9-10

[31] Matthew 22:37-40

[32] 1 Timothy 1:11-13

[33] Romans 16: 1-2

[34] Ibid 15:23

[35] A N Wilson, Paul: The mind of the Apostle, Pimlico, London, 1997 p 257

[36] Gunther Bornkamm, Paul Translated by D M G Stalker, Hodder and Stoughton, Sevenoaks, 1975 p xv

[37] A N Wilson Paul The Mind of the Apostle. Pimlico. London, 1998

[38] Psalm 25:6. The King James version is: ‘Remember, O Lord, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.’

[39] Christos Tsiolkas, Damascus Allen and Unwin, Sydney 2019

[40] C Le Grand, The Age, 2/9/2019 https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/mercy-given-to-killer-who-showed-none-20190902-p52n5d.html  Accessed 10/12/2019

[41]Brooke Prentis, ‘Loving God, Neighbour, Enemy’ https://www.commongrace.org.au/god_neighbour_enemy Accessed 9/3/20

[42] Psalm 107:43

[43]Ibn Sina (Avicenna) A Treatise on Love https://muslimphilosophy.com/sina/works/avicenna-love.pdf Accessed 10/12/2019

[44] Idries Shah, The Way of the Sufi, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1974 p 252

[45] ‘A Common Word’ https://www.acommonword.com/  

[46] The Bhagavad Gita 12:13-14

[47]Philip Bump ’15 Years after the Iraq War began the death toll is still murky’ The Washington Post 21/03/2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/03/20/15-years-after-it-began-the-death-toll-from-the-iraq-war-is-still-murky/  Accessed 21/12/2019

[48] Ian Keese ‘The Australian’s War for God ’https://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19466 Accessed 21/12/2019

[49] The Weekend Australian. December 21-22, 2019 p13

[50] Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror: reflections on Self-Delusion, 4th Estate, London, 2019 pp.139-40

[51] 1 Corinthians 13:13