The influential French theologian who was excommunicated by the Pope for his views, Alfred Loisy, concluded that there were two different “Pauls” authoring the main letters attributed to him. The reason Paul’s letters are generally considered “hard to understand” is because they intertwine two incompatible messages of the Christian faith. Loisy acknowledges that scholars of his day — as they still do today — attribute the contradictions to the fervid mind of an enthusiastic genius. But he also points out that if contradictory notions were indeed birthed in the one mind then that one mind would find a way to reconcile them before setting them down in writing.
Two theories of salvation:
The first message is simple, coherent, and supported by a typical rabbinical exegesis of the Jewish Scriptures. All Christians are promised entry into the coming Kingdom of God if they believe that Jesus was raised from the dead and was soon to come again to establish the kingdom of God. Just as God had promised Abraham that his seed (understood by Paul to refer to Christ) would inherit the earth, and just as Abraham believed God, so all who believed in Christ would be made immortal with Abraham in Christ’s kingdom. This message was grounded in a subtle interpretation of the Scriptures: e.g. interpreting the “seed” of Abraham as the single person of Christ despite its otherwise original meaning to refer to multiple descendants. Salvation comes from faith in the promise that God made to Abraham for his believing offspring. Loisy calls this the “eschatological” gospel message. Here the Law in the “Old Testament” is a blessing but not obligatory on those who believe, just as Abraham was justified by his trust in God’s promise before he was circumcised.
The second message was mystical. Abraham did not feature at all. Instead, we begin with Adam who sinned and thereby consigned all of humanity to a state of sinfulness. At the appointed time a “second Adam” came, that is, Christ, who lived a perfect life, died as a sacrifice to make amends for humanity’s sin, and was resurrected, so that all who likewise “died” with him (in the ritual of baptism) and believed in him would also “live anew” with Christ in them — so undoing the sin of Adam and offering salvation to all. Salvation comes from faith that Christ has redeemed the believer from sin. In this mystical gospel the Law found in the “Old Testament” is a curse.
For Loisy, the original letters expressed the simple and coherent eschatological message of salvation. At some point another hand had attempted to qualify and redirect that message by adding the message of the mystical gospel. This second hand preceded that of the famous arch “heretic” of the second century, Marcion. A few years ago I had asked Roger Parvus to post his investigations into the origins of the Pauline epistles on this blog and he, influenced by Loisy, also concluded that the changes to the letters were made before Marcion. (Contrast the view of Loisy’s contemporary, Joseph Turmel — discussed earlier — who saw Marcion as the primary redactor of Paul’s letters.)
Two theories of salvation are revealed to us in the body of the Epistle to the Romans; however, only one of the two authors can be easily defined. This author evokes with a profound sense of his Israelite origin and his love for his people the promise made to Abraham, which currently benefits both Gentiles and Jews. Regarding the mystical personality that opposes Paul of the eschatological theory or assimilates him to transform him into the unique apostle of the mystery, we have found barely any trace. It seems that the mystical theory initially existed independently and was later adjusted as a corrective to the eschatological theory by a disciple of its first author. However, a mystical Paul appears elsewhere, notably in the Epistle to the Galatians and in some main parts of the two Epistles to the Corinthians, where he not only titles himself the apostle of the mystery but also proclaims himself the unique apostle of this mystery of salvation, which would be the only true Gospel. (Loisy, 33 — translation)
If Loisy’s analysis is correct and the early epistles of Paul that we have in our Bibles are the product of at least two hands, each arguing for a different gospel or message of salvation, then the following implications follow for our reading of the first chapters of Galatians.
The Paul who wrote the first draft of the letters was teaching the common message being spread by other apostles of the earliest “Christian church”. However, the mystic Paul who deemed himself to be the uniquely called apostle of the only true gospel and owed nothing to any of the other leaders of the Jesus followers wrote in Galatians 1:
11I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. . . .
15But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.
A “proto-orthodox” devotee of Paul saw the danger of allowing that passage to stand without qualification so he added — with a strident declaration that he was not lying! — the following words to remind readers that Paul was indeed submissive to, or at least on a par with, the other apostles, just as we read in Acts:
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.
The second Galatians chapter as we have it is another mix of two Pauline accounts. In Acts 15, which Loisy sees as essentially historical on this point, Paul was sent to Jerusalem with others to discuss and decide whether gentile converts should be circumcised. The “mystical Paul”, on the other hand, added to the letter to the Galatians that he did not go to Jerusalem at the behest of others but went up because of a divine revelation. The same mystical Paul forgot that the only reason for the Jerusalem meeting was to nut out the question of circumcision and immediately made a point, otherwise inappropriately, that he “presented his gospel” to the Jerusalem leaders. A more “historical Paul” added that he did so as an act of acknowledgement of the authority of the Jerusalem apostles. Galatians 2:
1Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. 7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.
The mystical Paul has added here a quite unrealistic scenario. It would have been quite impossible for such a neat division of audiences between Cephas/Peter and Paul. The gospel was always preached initially to both Jews and gentile attendees in the synagogues. Loisy adds that at the time of the Jerusalem council (mid 40s CE) there were no “super apostles”. That status was a later (second century) memory projected back into earlier times.
What is not natural, what is historically inconceivable, what is a pure fiction imagined long after the origins, is the very division of humanity to be converted. Never, during his lifetime, was Paul the unique Apostle, charged by Christ, to provide for the evangelization of the Gentiles. Never did Peter and the Twelve consider themselves the sole authorized missionaries to Judaism, especially since most of them probably never were missionaries. The conditions of Christian preaching in apostolic times are well known: the Gospel was not first offered to the pagan world as such; it could not be, it was first offered within the Jewish world of the Dispersion; but the Christian preaching reached, at the same time as the Jews, the pagan clientele of the synagogues, the proselytes and half-proselytes that the synagogues gathered around them throughout the Roman Empire. It is certain, not only from the consistent account in Acts but also from the Epistles as they echo Paul’s personal ministry, that he, in every locality where he brought the Gospel, spoke first in the synagogues, and consequently addressed the Jews, and when he was no longer tolerated in the synagogues, settled nearby, continuing to attract both Jews and proselytes indiscriminately. In Jerusalem in 44, there could not have been a division of the world between two apostolates, and the fiction could only have been conceived at quite a distance, invented to characterize two legendary figures for the sake of a controversy. The issue that could have been and was dealt with in the Jerusalem assembly was that of legal observances, which our author seems almost uninterested in, because, in reality, he is focused on something entirely different. Thus, the only difficulty in our current problem is to historically situate the mystical Paul. Identifying him outright with Marcion or one of his followers is a drastic solution, since the mystical Paul is not Marcionite. On the other hand, the historical Paul, much to the dismay of champions of authenticity, would have been the blindest of polemicists, the most notorious liar, or the most insane of fools if he had spoken the language attributed to him by his spokesperson. One only has to look at the text to realize this. The issue is only obscured by the very respectable prejudice of the interpreters, which we infinitely respect. (43f – translation)
Loisy, A. Remarques sur La Littérature Épistolaire Du Nouveau Testament. Librairie Emile Nourry, 1935.