Anne Lastman
For a man who has been quoted and debated about and agreed and disagreed with for over two thousand years, Paul of Tarsus, seems to have little to say about himself and indeed even Acts of the Apostles and epistles have little to say.
Paul of Tarsus enters into the realm of Christianity first as an opponent then as its fiercest and most radical preacher and reformer. For St Paul his zealotry appears to have been transferred from his Jewish beliefs to Christian beliefs. Paul’s nature can perhaps be assessed as a nature that seeks and pursues truth and when he finally finds that truth, no other truths exist. He was a fierce man. His ancestry Hebrew, a man of the Torah who then had a vision of Jesus and been given a commission by him (Ph 3:12) and in that vision and with all the ramifications of that vision Paul responded with the same zealotry as that of his Jewish belief. Paul, after the vision could never be the same again.
Luke’s account of Paul’s experience (Acts 9) is descriptive and much can be said for the nature of this writing. It’s the writing of another colleague who has described the surety that the early Church was in complete harmony and did not experience difficulties with leadership and formation. However, I would like to dispute this and say that if Paul and Luke (author of Acts) were companions and colleagues then surely Paul would have told him of his experience, that is, the vision. At least Paul would have tried to make sense of what happened on that road to Damascus. Reading the acts version of the conversion experience is reminiscent of the Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah the prophet who was reluctant to be a prophet.
Luke’s retelling of the story which he tried to piece together after St. Paul’s versions of it (as he also tried to make sense of it) appears not as someone trying to show a harmonious nascent church but rather trying to explain something which could not be explained in words, because of lack of known words capable of describing the event. (vision) It’s also my contention that St. Paul had difficulty understanding what had happened. Theologians have written and will continue to do so with different thoughts and understandings of the event.. Plato has this to say, which I think may explain the paucity of words regarding the conversion experience of St. Paul “one cannot make any statement about God which can be altogether and in every respect consistent with one another” (Timaeus 29c). This statement shows the difficulties which an inquirer encounters every time an attempt is made to speak about God and St. Paul experienced this lack of understanding.
An experience of, and encounter with God, can only be kept in conscious memory and pondered upon rather than given oral expression. This is because the language used has been devised to cater for the known empirical world. The meaning of words is to be found in the nature of the things that they stand for. So, to attempt to explain God with words is onerous because meaning cannot be found in the mundane.
Having said this, Paul’s own account of his experience is brief, and because so little is offered by him should tell us much about the nature of the experience, especially when we consider his “zeal” (1Tm1:13, Acts 24:5, 14) for his former beliefs. It’s also possible that the experience was so much out of the realm of the “normal” that St. Paul had no vocabulary to describe it.
What we do encounter in the person of St Paul is one who is no longer boastful, violent, zealous but “shaken” Whilst scholars believe that St Paul did not speak or write about certain events in his life and indeed appears to contradict himself his writings, it’s my contention that it was not contradiction but omission of details. This omission , not for sinister or dishonest reasons but simply because they were considered unnecessary at the time of his writing and for his work. For the most part his epistles were written to churches which (Galatians, Thessalonians, Philippians, and Corinthians) he had founded and were used as a means of explanation, correction, exhortation, encouragement. So, it would appear that those he would be writing for would not question aspects about his life but were in anticipation of his writing as a response to questions and /or crisis. At these times to also prove his authenticity. To prove that his defence of the Gospel is appropriate and legitimate. (Phil.1: 7).
Marrow in his “Paul and his Letters and His Theology” suggests that the Acts account of his conversion experience and the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:55 –81) was used to locate Paul in Jerusalem in order to show him as an avowed and cruel persecutor of the Church so that after his conversion he could be seen as a very changed man. This to show that conversion is radical and he had been a persecutor of followers of the Way. All things would not have gone back to pre-Jesus times after his death and resurrection and Ascension, even if for a time some of his followers would have laid low for “fear of the Jews.”
A further understanding of the conversion experience of St. Paul may indeed be exactly as it is read in Acts 9. It may be that the Acts account is meant to signify and visibly show the nature of conversion, that is, that it is radical change from one course of life to its complete reversal (Gal. 1:23). St. Paul’s own conversion from persecutor to Apostle could not be further apart. The experience serves to create a state of tension in Paul. He is hesitant to speak about his experience because he is unable to do so. However, he is not hesitant in his reminder (when it suited him) that he had experienced such an encounter.
To all intents and purposes “Paul talks about his experience when he has to do so in polemical contexts (Gal.1:15-16; 1Cor.15: 9-10; Phil. 3:4-11) and never as an example of personal piety.” This alone is an indicator that there was something more to the experience than seen. Should he have wished to make use of the experience for personal gain even if only as an apostle, he would have used his experience more often. His use of the experience to justify his apostleship and authority (1Cor. 4:15; 2 Cor. 10:13-18 ) demonstrates that he needed to assert his calling and authority to preach. Further, 1Cor. 14:37) is another attempt towards this end. Perhaps the best that can be said is that he was hesitant to talk about his experience because of the previously mentioned reasons however, when the need arose, he strongly asserted his authentic Christ given authority as an apostle. This was important because to be recognised as a true apostle, genuinely chosen by Jesus Himself conferred on him the same apostolic prestige and privilege as those chosen by Jesus at the beginning of His ministry and in this privilege the authority to preach the Gospel like those who were sent by Jesus (Mk:16:15), LK 14:23, Mt: 28:19-20, Acts 1: 7-8.and he said to them “go out into the world and proclaim the Gospel to all creation”
Whilst authors and commentators have said much about the conversion experience, for St Paul himself it was obviously a life changing event and central to his own understanding of who he was, who Jesus was, and the beginnings of a new and revolutionary theology. His theological beliefs, like his life, had to take a very different turn. The strength of his call had to be sufficient in order to be able to make such an extraordinary claim about his conversion. Saul, the born, bred, learned and true Pharisee and son of Israel had to become Paul, the apostle to the unclean gentiles. Paul the one who had to abandon his past firmly and deeply held beliefs, now had to adopt those of the Risen Lord.
As far as evidence allows us to be sure, Paul’s Damascus experience has enormous significance for Christianity. At different levels this experience becomes the turning point of the new movement. Until this time the emergent Christianity and Church appear to move along made up of Hebrew Jewish Christians, and Hellenistic Jewish Christians and gentiles who wished to enter into the movement and had to do so first via the known ways of Judaism. Christianity in this reality would appear to eventually become lost and immersed into Judaism. Jesus Christ would have eventually been another Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:34-42) that is, another type of messiah as expected before. Paul’s sincere belief that he had seen the Risen Lord, had spoken to Him, and been commissioned by Him just as surely as the other Apostles (1Cor.15:8, Gal. 1:16, Acts 9:17, 22:14) validates his apostleship and his commission to break away and go to the gentile nations to bring to them the Gospel. A different gospel. His encounters with Jesus, and Jesus’ own instructions to him validated his role as the newest apostle (Act9: 3-16, Gal.1: 12,15f; Eph 3:2f. Ph 3:12).
For Paul of Tarsus the ultimate significance of “that” experience was that Jesus was the Son of God. That God had vindicated Jesus at His resurrection. The Jesus who had been reviled was exalted and indeed it was not Israel (with the Torah, the Law and prophets) that had been resurrected but Jesus, the one who had been seen as accursed who was resurrected. It was not the resurrection of Israel, (from pagan dominance) but the resurrection of Jesus, which was the central and turning point.
Paul’s experience was strong enough to convince him “that God had raised Jesus and that Jesus was indeed Messiah and Savior. This experience necessitated a fundamental reconfiguration of his set of world-structuring convictions, with Christ replacing Torah as the means by which membership in the people of God was to be determined.”
Overt theological content gleaned from St. Paul’s conversion experience appears very small yet in the ensuing life, his missionary journeys, his progressive understanding of his call, his radical perception and understanding of how God (through Jesus) brings to completion His own plan of redemption for all of humanity, we are able to see a new theology breaking through. If we are to accept that St. Paul’s Damascus experience included a commissioning as well as a “turnaround” then his theology can be seen as being implanted within his experience itself but not developed to its full definition. This would also make sense of the need for him to be silent for some years (Gal.1:18). If St Paul is to be believed as an apostle to the gentiles, who has been commissioned by Jesus to preach a different (law free gospel), then his understanding of this gospel would need to be understood and believed by himself first, before being taken to those he was sent to preach to.
With the benefit of hindsight and considering Lucan narrative and Paul’s own brief comments about his experience, it’s possible to identify the nucleus of a new theology. The influence of the Risen Christ as the Son of God (Gal. 1:12; 1 Cor.9: 1; 1 Cor. 2:8; 1 Cor.15: 8) would have set the scholar in Paul onto a new path of understanding and a new searching of the word of God. The vision “seized” him (Phil.3: 12) and it had been laid upon him the necessity to preach the Gospel to a new people. (Gal. 1:16.) This then would mean that if the gentiles were to be incorporated into the body of the Christ, then surely a new and different way was necessary than by way of the old Law. For Paul the Law was meant for a different people, called to a specific purpose, and for a specific time, and most importantly not for all time. The Law, the prophets, the writings, (the Torah) was to be a forerunner to the definitive law, but not the law itself so when the new law was established the former would have completed its task of ushering in the definitive one.
St. Paul’s post “experience” theology must by its very nature be different from his pre-experience theology. Post road to Damascus theology is expansionist because he has understood who Jesus is “he is Christ, the power of God and the Wisdom of God” (1Cor.1:25) and the “story of the Cross” (1 Cor. 1:18) places Jesus at the matrix of all time and is the manner by which God aims to achieve the salvation of all humankind. It’s the accommodation of this very idea, which serves to develop Paul’s new theology. According to this understanding Torah cannot achieve salvation because by its very nature has the power to enslave. Torah, what appears to be the pinnacle of God’s revelation, must diminish to allow the definitive law in the person of Jesus Christ and the Gospel, to complete the work. An analogy that can be used is that of the bridegroom and his best man. The best man must know when to withdraw in order to allow the bridegroom to grow in stature. Torah gathered the tribes and nurtured them-Christ, the Redeemer, must gather the nations in order to nurture them and then to present them as a saved people to the designer and author of this very idea who was God Himself.
Ultimately Pauline theology is not a theology that has been systematically developed but is an emergent theology. It’s a theology, which developed as he sought to preach, teach, and exhort his communities. His earliest known letter to the Thessalonians clearly shows an attempt to work through anxieties and questions posed by the church members (chapter 4) and gives theological interpretation and assurance (regarding the Parousia). However by the time that he wrote the letter to the Roman community it’s a theology more sophisticated and more crystallised and whilst he still appears to grapple with certain issues (Justification by faith in Jesus rather than law) it’s indeed a much more cohesive theology than his earlier efforts. God’s work is so amazing
Abraham is forerunner to the future John Baptist who announces Jesus, and Jesus is forerunner to the one he promises to send after Him. The Holy Spirit, who will teach all things and will remind you of everything I told you.
It’s a mighty work of God to choose a nomadic group Habiru and develop them into a humanity to bring his people back to Himself. And the Holy Spirit whose physical voice is “Peter” mandated by Jesus Himself will guide and lead back home, “of those you have given me I lost not one” (Jn 18:9).
NOTE
If the reader is interested in the references, pls, ask our Secretariat.
