Tag: Apostle Paul

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6.

Paul the Apologist

If Paul, as portrayed in the Acts of the Apostles, had to share the fame of miraculous power with Peter, and even had the honor of being worthy of direct revelations from heaven and wonderful visions, which he could only make use of after it was legitimized by the same privilege given to Peter, and finally, if entry into his historical sphere of influence was only possible after Peter had opened it for him – in short, if he had to sacrifice all his individuality and originality and give up his historical significance in favor of the primitive apostles – then during his last stay in Jerusalem, this work of humiliation was completed, and even the apostles protested against the idea that he was a revolutionary, as the people perceived him, and as he appears in the letters.

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He now expounds his own protest, whereas hitherto events and their entanglements had deprived him of the glory of originality and of revolutionary power. He did not sacrifice the glory of the conquest himself, but the circumstance that Peter won the first fruits of paganism and first surrendered the privilege of Judaism, wrested from his hand the palm of the first victory which the epistles bestow on him. But now he himself assures us that he is a strictly legal man and that it could not have occurred to him to leave the legal ground – now he is the apologist of himself and proves by his legal conduct that the reproach of his opponents that he wants to undermine the appeal of the law is unfounded. If the revolution that triumphs in the dedication of salvation to the Gentiles cannot be denied, he at least excuses it by invoking the irresistible force that his heavenly Lord had driven him to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. Finally, in Rome and in his dealings with the local Jewish community, another side of his apologetics is completed, as he formulates a principle that he has strictly followed throughout his entire activity in pure generality: with their stubborn resistance to salvation, the Jews themselves are to blame for his turning to the Gentiles with the Gospel.

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Thus, he presents the apology for his work and his person in three forms: – he is a strictly legal man, only the irresistible force of heaven drove him to the Gentiles, and the Jews themselves, in their blindness, pointed him to the sphere of activity to which his Lord had called him.

Therefore, the contrast against the letters reaches its highest point. Let’s see if he can maintain it.

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The legalism of the apostle

Even before his last journey to Jerusalem, the apostle was driven to the holy city by his legal duty. He had just arrived in Ephesus and had left the synagogue, the Jews there invited him to stay for a long time, but duty *) called him to Jerusalem, he had to hold the upcoming feast there, the consideration of his legal duty made him overlook the possible and, given the willingness of the Jews, almost certain successes of his apostolic activity [in Ephesus] – he left for Caesarea, but actually only stole away to Jerusalem, i.e. the author only hints at the actual departure. i.e. the author only furtively hints at the actual departure for Jerusalem by only reporting that the apostle, “after he had gone up and greeted the church **), returned to Antioch”.

*) 18:21. δει με παντως …..

**) V. 22. ἀναβὰς …..

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But why so furtively? Why does the author only hint at the fact that the departure for the holy city really took place in a fleetingly thrown participle? Why does he even avoid the name of the holy city?

The reason why the author uses the motive as evidence for the apostle’s legalistic attitude is because it is repeated shortly thereafter, and a detailed report on the journey to Jerusalem would have created a disturbing pleonasm.
Before his last trip to Jerusalem, when the apostle left Europe, he waited in Philippi until the Passover was over (Acts 20:6), thus demonstrating his legalistic attitude again by observing the festival in peace, even if not in the midst of the sacrificing community in Jerusalem. However, he did indeed want to celebrate a festival in the holy city when he bid farewell to Greece, the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 20:16), and he was in such a hurry to be in Jerusalem at the right time that he even bypassed Ephesus and summoned the elders of the local church to Miletus.
If the fear of overcrowding the narrative led the author to conceal the previous trip to Jerusalem, he, on the other hand, created an overabundance of motives in his account of the apostle’s last journey, which proves the uncertainty of his pragmatism and overall destroys his festival pragmatism.

The Feast of Pentecost drew the apostle to Jerusalem and at least hastened his journey. He had already made the decision to travel before, while he was in Ephesus in the midst of a fruitful ministry. Despite the success that surrounded him in Ephesus, he wanted to go to Jerusalem and then to Rome – he said, “I must also see Rome” (Acts 19:21).

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He was only called to Jerusalem by the holy significance and legal importance of the city – he had to visit Jerusalem before he went to Rome – so he says later in his speech to Felix himself (24:11, 17) that he came to Jerusalem purely and solely with the intention of worshipping, and that after an absence of several years – (the author forgets that the apostle had secretly stolen away to Jerusalem shortly before) – he was driven by the desire to sacrifice in the holy city.

In the speech to the elders at Miletus, on the other hand, he gives a completely different motive for the journey: the spirit has bound him, a supernatural power drives him to Jerusalem towards his destiny – he does not know his destiny, only that he knows that bonds and tribulations await him in Jerusalem – the spirit has proclaimed it to him from city to city and has not let him rest because of this testimony, driving him inexorably on – he suspects that his career will soon be complete (20:22-24).

Each of these two motives, however, makes the other superfluous – both even lay claim to such exclusive validity that they finally exclude each other – i.e. they originated in writing, but the writer’s skill was not great enough to bring them both into an intelligible connection.

In another respect, the report is overfilled, but this overfilling is at the same time a contradiction that drags the whole into its unhappy fate.

The day after his arrival in Jerusalem, Paul went to James and the elders, heard from them that the believing Jews of the capital were disturbed by the rumour that he was persuading the foreign Jews to apostatise from Moses, and received from them the advice to join four men who had taken a vow upon themselves and to be purified together with them in order to prove the groundlessness of the rumour and to show that he was also walking in strict observance of the law (21:20-24). Paul follows the advice, takes those four men with him to the temple and lets himself be purified together with them by haircut and sacrifice.

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So it had happened by chance that Paul had taken the same vow on his arrival in Jerusalem, that he had let his hair grow as a result of this vow?

Indeed, the author answers, already in Greece the apostle had taken a vow, already in Cenchrea he had had his hair shaved *) – the author wants to prepare and explain here what happened in Jerusalem, he wants to report the beginning of the vow from which Paul released himself in Jerusalem, but he was mistaken in making the shaving of the hair, which signifies the end of the vow, the beginning of it, and he did not consider that it was impossible for the apostle on his journeys and in his constant contact with pagans to avoid the defilements which the Rasiraean had to flee from all.

*) 18:18. That Paul is the one who had the vow on himself is proven by the continuing unity of the subject vv. 18,19: ειχε . . . κατηντησε . . . κατέλιπε and the distinction of the apostle from the others xxx

Paul had already had to take a vow for a long time if he was to be able to join those four men on the mission. The author wanted to avoid this difficulty earlier, but he made the preparations so badly that the later event remains impossible. The event remains impossible.

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James presupposes that the rumour that troubled the Jews in Jerusalem concerning the apostle was false – this presupposition is so certain to him that he considers every word about it to be useless, – Paul, too, does not say a word about the fact that he does abolish the law, nor does he give an apologetic discussion about the fact that this rumour does have a reason, but otherwise is based on a misunderstanding, he says nothing about the sense and extent to which he abolishes the law – rather, he tacitly agrees with James that the rumour lacks all foundation, and immediately knows how to follow his advice and to prove by the public solution of his vow that, with his strict legalism, an unfaithfulness to the law, such as the rumour presupposes in him, is impossible for him.

The Gentiles are not mentioned in the accusation which the rumour brought against him, only that he was accused of seducing the foreign Jews to apostasy from Moses and leading them not to circumcise their children and not to observe the legal customs, – and only James mentions in passing (21:25), that by the prompt suppression of this rumour the liberty of the Gentile Christians should not be affected, – only this anxiously added clause, which is partly intended to lift the inner improbability of the report, perhaps to cover it altogether, only serves to complete its dissolution.

The clause in itself is completely meaningless, since the rumor of the apostle’s unlawful transgression does not even remotely consider relying on a maxim that he observed towards the Gentiles. Neither by that rumor, nor by the Apostle’s obedience to the advice that James gave him, is the freedom of the Gentile Christians threatened, since it hardly existed on the ground that the current controversy took place.

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On the contrary! That accusation, which had reached the ears of the believing Jews in Jerusalem, was supposed to encompass everything that was known about Paul, – was supposed to sum up his entire revolutionary activity in one expression – the people who spread that rumour wanted to attack Paul’s entire effectiveness – the crime of which he was accused was supposed to characterise his entire being.

His opposition to the law – and that is the main thing and the reason for the confusion that runs through the account and throws it to the ground – is thus misconceived in that accusation – wrongly approved and conceded in James’ clause – (he is right to spare the Gentiles from circumcision) – wrongly limited and brought back to its supposed correct limit – (so that the clause is based on the assumption that he would certainly violate the law if he wanted to exempt the believing Jews from circumcising their children, which is not the case).

When the author wanted to clear the apostle of the accusation that he was a revolutionary, he had to specify the accusation in some way. The accusation that he did not keep the law and did everything in his power to overthrow it would have been too general and vague — later, when the crisis broke out and the foreign Jews aroused the rebellion against the apostle, they generally only accused him of his enmity against the people, the law and the temple (21:28) – later, in the speeches in which the apostle justifies himself against his enemies, even reproach and accusation take on new forms and shapes, thus the author proves his inability to express in his “proper” way the real and historical opposition that Paul had formed against the law.

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Not only his incapacity (the work of confusion thus still continues), but he also proves that it was actually impossible for him to form an accusation that was somewhat reminiscent of the apostle’s struggles and of his opponents’ accusations. His Paul is not a revolutionary, he did nothing that could even arouse the suspicion of the believing Jews; what he did among the Gentiles is only the continuation of the value of Peter, and if he remitted circumcision to the Gentiles, he acted under the authorisation of the primitive apostles and only carried out their express decision, which was moreover inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The revolutionary, the victorious opponent of the law stands outside, fights and wins in the letters – in the Acts of the Apostles he is to be cleansed from the stain of the revolutionary attitude – from a stain that fell on him through no fault of his own.

So how to shape the stain? How to formulate the accusation? How? It was a matter of the author’s fancy and art. When, therefore, he had at least to introduce the collision, to form it intelligibly, when it was a question of putting down a groundless rumour and at the same time leaving the Gentiles in peace and quiet and in the enjoyment of their liberty, he formed that rumour that the apostle was leading the Jews to apostasy from Moses, he formed the accusation which, according to the conditions in which he himself lived, was at most still the most conceivable crime of which the apostle could be accused, and he added the safeguarding clause of James.

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Hence the thoroughgoing confusion!

But it remains the case that the accusation that the Apostle wants to free the Jews from the yoke of the Law, strikes at his whole historical effectiveness, and that the Apostle, by refuting the accusation, is to prove his unconditional and complete loyalty to the Law. He is not a revolutionary – an attack on the law, such as the rumour ascribes to him, would have been an outrage which he – he, the strictly legal man – found utterly impossible.

The Paul of Acts thus disavows the Paul of the Epistles – the apologist disavows the revolutionary – only this disavowal is unfortunate in so far as nothing in Acts could give rise to the suspicion that the apostle was a revolutionary.

Only in the Epistles does the man live and work who, in the freedom he won for the Gentiles, at the same time founded the freedom of the Jewish Christians and, by freeing the Gentiles, overthrew the law altogether. But this fighter and liberator, whom the Paul of the Acts of the Apostles disavows, will never recognise him either.

The Paul of the Epistle to the Galatians asserts his abolition of the law so absolutely, asserts it so ruthlessly for Jews and Gentiles, that the thought of any exemption is impossible to him and would even appear as a betrayal of the dearly bought freedom. He does not want to know that the freedom of the Gentile Christians, as an exceptional privilege, should not interfere with the legal custom of the Jewish Christians – nor does he think of leaving the Jews their law and only preserving the freedom of the Gentiles by a proviso in addition to their legality.

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Instead of giving the apologists of today, who partly admit the contradiction between Paul’s behaviour and conduct in the Acts of the Apostles and his own statements in the Epistles, but hope to eliminate it by the assertion *) that the apostle, “if he did not want to be unfaithful to himself,” must have sent “more detailed explanations” before he followed the plan devised by James, – instead of taking away their hope and showing that the author of the Acts of the Apostles does not know and does not need explanations that would correct James’ presuppositions, since he knows nothing of the apostle’s activity and teaching that is directed against the law, – instead we prefer to point out how the author completely destroys his report by the way in which he brings about the catastrophe.

*) For example, Schneckenburger, op. cit. p. 64. 65.

The many myriads of believing Jews of whom James speaks (21:20) are, according to the own presuppositions of the Acts of the Apostles, an impossibility and cannot hold their own next to the presuppositions of the Epistles, according to which the early church consisted of poor alms-receivers.

When James explains that the zeal for the law of these thousands of believing Jews and their suspicion, which the rumor about the apostle’s revolutionary teaching has instilled in them, is to be feared, he particularly relies on the fact that a meeting of this multitude, as soon as they hear of Paul’s arrival, is absolutely necessary and cannot be avoided *) – and indeed an official, communal meeting, since the author knows very well that a popular gathering **), a gathering of the crowd, is not a meeting and both are precisely distinguished by language.

*) V. 22. παντως δει πληθος συνελθειν

**) V. 30. συνδρομη του λαου

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Nevertheless, the author had the following popular gathering in mind already when he made James express his concern about the inevitable meeting of the community – he wanted to motivate and prepare this gathering in advance – but when the tumultuous gathering actually takes place (V. 30), the whole people of Jerusalem are on the square and the Jewish-Christian zealots have disappeared – yes, so completely disappeared and forgotten that it is only foreign Jews (V. 27) who have to come out and incite the crowd, the whole people ***) against the Apostle.

***) V. 27. παντα τον οχλον

The author himself eliminated the myriads of believing Jews, together with their suspicion, and he was right to do so, for the creation of these countless believers and zealots was a misguided one from the start and could not hold its own next to the brethren who received the apostle kindly on his arrival in Jerusalem, and next to the elders together with James, who supported him with their benevolent counsel. The contrast between these brothers and the hostile myriads is chaotic and groundless – the worrying position that the myriads of law-seekers occupy destroys the connection between the congregation and its leaders and rulers – those “myriads” therefore only experience their deserved fate when they are soon forgotten by the author.

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The apostle’s speeches of defence

No! He is not a revolutionary – not a man of violence who, by virtue of his sense of self, rebels against the statutes of the old world and throws them down – he is not an opponent of the law – not the powerful destroyer who wants to destroy the law and free the world from its yoke – he is innocent – the apostle himself demonstrates this in his speech before the people, before Felix and Agrippa and, what is more, he shows before the synod with what anxiousness he seeks to obey every letter of the law.

This is not an innovator, who, with the same eagerness with which the apostle speaks to the people (22:3-21), presents the mission he received from the Gentiles, the mission that had not even been charged to him previously, as one that he could not avoid and that was even forced upon him by a higher power against his will. Thoroughly instructed in the paternal law at the feet of Gamaliel and a zealot for it, he was cast down by the Lord and when he wanted to work among the Jews in Jerusalem, he was sent by him to the Gentiles. Even then, when the Lord had taken him, he did not leave the connection with the Law, for Ananias, a legally pious man, introduced him to his ministry and he was kneeling in prayer in the temple when the Lord sent him to the Gentiles.

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Thus no innovator speaks like the apostle, when he, before King Agrippa (26:2-23), again leads the proof from the notoriously established circumstance that he formerly belonged to the strictest sect of the Jews, that he did not throw himself into a work out of frivolous courage, into which rather the irresistible force of his Lord placed him – no! even that for which he is now accused is nothing new, – he hopes for nothing new, but only for the promise made to the fathers, and this hope is still common to him with the twelve tribes of his people – he also does not teach one word apart from what the prophets and Moses taught (26:6-7, 22).

He is no rebel, no apostate, for even if his opponents call the association to which he now belongs a sect, he still serves in it, as he explains to Felix (24:14-15), only the God of his fathers, he believes only what is written in the Law and the Prophets, and his only hope is that there will be a resurrection of the dead.

If these turns of phrase were perhaps only timid, his behaviour before the Synod is downright inappropriate, unattractive, and the position he gives himself to the Pharisaic part of the Synod can be called unworthy.

The Apostle uses a mistake of the high priest, which immediately causes his supporters to strike him on the mouth for the beginning of his defense speech, to “tell the truth” to the barbarian and at the same time to prove with what conscientiousness he follows the law, while his opponents do not respect it. He attacks the high priest, even using an insult against him, but when he is reminded whether he wants to insult the high priest, he retracts his outburst and assures that he did not know it was the high priest, otherwise he would certainly have shown him the respect that the law requires (23:1-5).

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He acts as if he did not know the high priest – he wants to say that he had to conclude from his conduct that he was not the high priest – he secretly rejoices in the cleverness with which he strikes a blow at the high priest, tells him the truth and at the same time protects himself against the consequences of his dishonourable conduct against “the chief of his people”, – Unfortunately, however, only the author himself has spoiled the apostle’s unpleasant joy in his cleverness, this ugly tickle over his modesty, by having him address the high priest in his outburst as this authoritative person who sits in judgement over him *).

*) V. 3. και συ καθη κρινων με κατα τον νομον ;

Equally unsightly and unworthy is the eagerness and self-abasement with which the Apostle appeals to the sectarian spirit of the Pharisees in order to win them over to his side against the Sadducean assessors of the Sanhedrin – unsightly the zeal with which he exclaims and assures: “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees!” – unworthy the turn he takes, avoiding the actual accusation and pretending to be accused for the sake of hope and because of the resurrection of the dead – (“of the righteous and the unrighteous,” as he adds in his speech before Felix) – The author does achieve his purpose and ultimately enjoys the pleasure that the two factions in the Sanhedrin confront each other and the Pharisees outright declare that they find nothing wrong with the accused, even admitting that a spirit or angel – (as if the Damascus appearance were one of the disputed points or had even been mentioned in the course of the proceedings!) – could have spoken with him. However, the author enjoys this pleasure only at the expense of the Apostle, who must discard everything he is in the letters for the sake of this triumph, and at the expense of probability, as despite the author, it remains impossible that the Pharisees, if the Apostle really wanted to avoid the actual point of contention, would have allowed it and forgotten that the belief in the resurrection of the dead is not at all the same as the belief in the risen Jesus.

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Nor do we want to argue with today’s apologist about whether the apostle was capable of answering to the people and the authorities in such a fearful and unworthy manner – rather, we will put an end to all arguments and free the apostle from the stain that the author’s unattractive composition casts on him, by showing how these negotiations before the spiritual and temporal rulers, as well as the catastrophe with which they ended, are copied verbatim from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ interrogations and the final tragedy of his life.

The Roman governor, who had imprisoned the apostle in the popular tumult, first sends him before the Sanhedrin, Paul then has to answer before the governor Felix and finally meets with King Agrippa – so the sequence is repeated in which the Jesus of Luke’s Gospel first stands before the Sanhedrin, then before Pilate, and finally before Herod.

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When Jesus pleads before the Synod, the servants strike him on the face – (Mark 14:65) – so the high priest gives orders to strike the apostle on the mouth *).

The Synedrium “bound” Jesus and “delivered” him to Pilate – so the prophet Agabus prophesied to the apostle when he stopped in Caesarea on his last journey to Jerusalem that the Jews would bind him and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles **).

Pilate initially refuses to comply with the Jews’ intentions, “knowing (Mark 15:20) that the chief priests had delivered him up only out of envy” – so Felix also seeks to stall the Jews, “knowing full well how the matter stood” (24:22).

Pilate’s wife learns in a dream that Jesus is a righteous man, warns her husband and the latter, when he has to give in to the people, declares that he does not want to be guilty of the blood of this righteous man – so Felix, with his wife Drusilla, a Jewess, listens to the apostle about his faith, is frightened when he hears his argument, and is only strengthened in his intention to stall the cause ***).

*) The scene John 18:22-23 is only copied from the Acts of the Apostles.

**)Mark 15:1 δήσαντες . . . παρέδωκαν
Acts 21: 11. δησουσιν . . . και παραδωσουσιν.

***) Acts 24:24-25. Whether the author had the present Gospel of Matthew (27:19, 24) in mind or a source scripture used by the compiler of the same, this question does not belong here.

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Felix – whose hesitation the author clumsily explains even from the circumstance that he hoped for a bribe from Paul for his release – wants to show the Jews a favor as he leaves his post and leaves the Apostle behind in custody (Acts 24:27) – Festus, his successor, wants to show the Jews a favor again and proposes to the Apostle, although the case has already been referred to Rome and is settled, whether he wants to be judged in Jerusalem (25:9) – the author has combined a twofold allusion from the Gospels into one – he thought of the fact that Pilate used to show favor to the people by releasing a prisoner at Passover, and at the same time of the other circumstance that Pilate finally wanted to do enough for the people and their hatred of the accused when he released Barabbas and offered them Jesus *).

*) Mark 15:15. βουλομενος τω οχλω το ικανον ποιησαι
Acts 24:27. θελων χαριτας καταθεσθαι
Acts 25:9. θελων χαριν καταθεσθαι

The overcrowding which the author brought from the source material of Luke’s Gospel in the original arrangement of the last tragedy has been faithfully repeated by the author of the Acts of the Apostles.

As Herod happened to be in Jerusalem in those days when the cause of Jesus came before Pilate, so it happened that Agrippa also happened to be “several days” in Caesarea, where Paul’s trial was being conducted. (Luke. 23:7, Acts 25:13.)

Herod had for some time desired to see Jesus, when the Roman governor granted him his wish-so Agrippa says to the governor Festus: “I would also like to hear the man,” and Festus promises him the fulfilment of his wish. *)

*) Luke 23, 8. ην γαρ θελων εξ ικανου ιδειν αυτον
Acts 25, 22. εβουλομην και αυτος του ανθρωπου ακουσαι

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Herod is in the company of his soldiers when Jesus stands before him – Agrippa, accompanied by the captains, enters the judgment house where he will see the apostle **).

**) Luke 23:11. συν τοις στρατευμασιν αυτου
Acts 25:23. συν τοις χιλιαρχοις

“You have brought this man to me as if he would draw away the people,” Pilate declares to the chief priests and rulers of the people after Herod had sent Jesus back, “and behold, I find in this man none of the things of which you accuse him, nor does Herod” – even when he stood before Herod, “nothing has been done to him that is worthy of death” – so the governor and Agrippa say to each other after the apostle’s conversation with the latter has ended: “this man has done nothing worthy of death” – both agree with the favourably disposed Pharisees of the Sanhedrin, who also declare that they find nothing wrong in this man ***)

***) Luke 23:15. ουδεν αξιον θανατου εστιν πεπραγμενον αυτω
Acts 26:31. ουδεν θανατου αξιον πρασσει ο ανθρωπος ουτος
Acts 23:9. ουδεν κακον ευρισκομεν εν τω ανθρωπω τουτω

Pilate certainly wanted to release Jesus – so Agrippa also says to Festus: this man could have been released if he had not appealed to the emperor (26:23) – but the fate of both must be fulfilled in spite of the good will and the favourable mood of their Gentile judges – Pilate finally hands over Jesus to the will of the Jews – Festus hands over Paul to the official who takes him to Rome *)

*) Luke 23:25. παρεδωκε
Acts 27:1. παρεδιδουν

But now we also know what to make of the Roman citizenship, which the apostle is said to have possessed from birth, against all historical probability. It is a means of pragmatism to fulfil the destiny **) that wanted him in Rome, and if we find no other reliable evidence that the apostle was really once in Rome, then the Acts of the Apostles are also unable to vouch for the fact that the apostle appeared in Rome. For the journey of which it reports, the stay in the metropolis which it describes, is only a work of pragmatism, and is only intended to give the apostle the opportunity to express in basically full clarity and generality the basic apologetic maxim which he followed from the beginning and throughout the whole course of his activity.

It is about the esteem in which he held the Jews.

**) In passing it should be noted: – his citizenship and the appeal to it frees the apostle from the scourging that was already intended for him (22:24) and that is really carried out on Jesus (Mark 15:15) – earlier in Philippi (16:23) the apostle had been scourged, but the authorities of the city were also frightened when they heard that he was a Roman citizen.

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The basic apologetic framework of the apostle

Although the apostle’s appointment to the ministry, that he should bear the name of the Lord before the Gentiles, was clear from the beginning and established (9:15) by divine revelation, he still appeared directly after his conversion before the Jews only. Even the bad experience he had of their malice – they threatened his life and forced him to flee from Damascus – could not stop him from trying again with them when he arrived in Jerusalem, but again he had to flee because the obdurate were still trying to kill him (9:20-30).

He tried again with the stubborn and turned to them when he appeared on his first missionary journey to Antioch in Pisidia – but again with the same unfortunate success, whereupon he openly and frankly *) stated his principle with Barnabas – (a principle, by the way, with whose establishment Peter had likewise preceded him 3:25-26) – “to you,” he cries, “the word of God had to be proclaimed first, but now that you have cast it from you and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, see, we turn to the Gentiles.”

*) 13:46. παρρησιασάμενοί

Nevertheless, he still does not appear as the resolute and independent apostle to the Gentiles as he characterises himself in the Epistle to the Galatians. When the hatred of the Jews had driven him out of Antioch, he immediately preached in the synagogue of Iconium (14:1) – in order to arouse the Jewish hatred anew, which then pursued him to Derbe and Lystra, where he found no Jews, so that his effectiveness among the Gentiles had to be disturbed and interrupted by the Jewish persecutors of Antioch and Iconium who were rushing after him.

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n the second great journey of discord, the same course of events, the same entanglement, the same end in Thessalonica and before (17: 2-14) – indeed, at the very moment when the author describes the apostle’s public appearance in the marketplace of Athens as a consequence *) of the impression made on him by the sight of the pagan nature of the city, he cannot refrain from inserting in the sentence indicating this consequence the note that the apostle appeared in the synagogue before the Jews, he thus confuses the construction of the sentence to the extent that he separates the consequence from the occasion.

*) 17:17 οὖν

In Corinth the scene is repeated which had already taken place in Antioch: – the apostle first addresses the Jews, teaches in their synagogue, but when they interrupted him with blasphemies, he explained to them that he leaves them to their fate and “now goes vindicated to the Gentiles. (18:5-6.)

In vain – as if he meant only the Gentiles of this one city, in the midst of which he then teaches for a year and a half – as if he were not the Apostle to the Gentiles par excellence, he first teaches again in the synagogue in Ephesus, until the obduracy of the Jews forces him to use the school of a Gentile for his lectures (19:8-9).

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In Rome, finally, the same beginning, the same entanglement, but this time a conclusion of really general importance – a really final decision!

Immediately after his hasty arrangements were made, Paul called a meeting of the heads of the Roman Jews – they agreed on a day on which he was to give them a detailed lecture on his teaching – they appeared on the appointed day, Paul preaches to them about Jesus from the law and the prophets – the Jews, however, got into inner discord because of his teaching and left him after he reminded them of the saying of Isaiah about the hardness of heart and obduracy of this people and explained to them that salvation is sent to the Gentiles and that they will hear it (C. 28, 25 – 28). 28, 25 – 28).

This people, the Jewish people and the Gentiles, now stand in opposition to each other with their opposite nature and destiny, decidedly and forever.

The matter is ended, the matter is decided and the author has achieved his purpose.

Paul is and remains the apostle to the Gentiles, but he did not bring about the break with Judaism either wilfully or of his own accord; rather, the Jews, through their obstinacy and obduracy, brought about and forced the break.

Paul was faithful and compliant to Judaism even after his conversion and throughout his entire ministry, but the Jews rejected him and drove him to the Gentiles.

The apostle broke through the barrier of Judaism, but only with the help of the Jews, who pushed him away and thus caused him to go to the Gentiles.

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Christianity is universal and also extends to the Gentiles – but only the hatred of the Jews has made it the property of the Gentiles.

By achieving this purpose and brilliantly proving the innocence of the Apostle, the author of the Acts of the Apostles has achieved even more – he has robbed Christianity of its creative and conquering power, and only by the chance that the Jews opposed him, has he made it the principle of life and salvation for the nations – his Paul does not turn to the Gentiles by virtue of his original and independent conviction that salvation belongs to them, but he brings them the gift of the gospel only after the Jews have rejected it – he does not act from the outset in the certainty that the Gentiles are the heirs of salvation, but he brings it to them only after the Jews have dispossessed themselves and made the heavenly treasure ownerless – in short, the author has finally achieved so much that the great turning point that the Paul of the letters brings about through his own conviction and establishes on the basis of the power and universality of the gospel itself is only due to chance – the chance that the Jews did not accept the offered salvation.

And yet he did not achieve his actual intention, as he rather betrayed his intention through the uniformity with which he repeatedly and constantly allows his Paul to turn to the Jews despite his calling as the apostle to the Gentiles and despite all adverse experiences. He exposes his intention completely and at the same time destroys any thought of implementation by letting the Apostle in Rome follow the same maxim and only refer to the disbelief of the Jews as a reason to turn to the Gentiles. In order to achieve his intention, the author must present the matter as if there was no community in Rome yet – he must therefore forget and make his readers forget that at the time when Paul entered Rome as a prisoner, the Epistle to the Romans must already have been written and that the Roman community is presupposed to be world-famous from the same letter – finally, he must speak of the Jews, as Paul explained to them that he carried his chains for the sake of the hope of Israel, in such a way that it is clear that they had not yet had the opportunity to get to know the new sect closely and were only dependent on the rumor that told them that it was being contradicted everywhere (Acts 28:22). However, the author was not completely able to deny the assumption that he had to exclude; rather, by letting “the brothers” (v. 15) from Rome come to meet the Apostle upon his arrival, he unintentionally revealed that he was aware of the assumption that there was already a community in Rome at that time, which was so familiar and insurmountable that he could not completely deny it despite his best intentions. –

114

We now summarize our investigation.

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76

5.

The speeches of Paul.

The contradiction that the one who himself appears primarily in the Acts of the Apostles as the Apostle to the Gentiles and as the tool chosen by the Lord to preach to the Gentiles must cede to Peter the glory of the first and decisive conquest, and to the apostles of the primitive community the honor of the umpire’s office over the internal affairs of the Gentile-Christian communities – this contradiction, this dependence on Peter and the original apostles, drives the author so much that he only lets the Apostle to the Gentiles repeat Peter’s teaching, presents salvation only as a continuation of the grace of the God of the Old Testament, and only preaches the risen, not the crucified, as the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises and as the author of forgiveness of sins.

77

The Apostle to the Gentiles no longer knows anything about his strict opposition to Judaism and the Law. Just as Peter enjoys addressing the people in his speeches in Jerusalem as the “men of Israel” and emphasizes with pleasure that Jesus was raised and sent to them, “the children of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with their fathers,” so Paul emphasizes with particular emphasis in his speech in Antioch in Pisidia that the word of salvation has been sent to them, the Jews, his “brothers, the children of the race of Abraham and those who fear God among them” – (the proselytes who have joined their community). *)

*) Acts 2:14 ανδρες ιουδαιοι και οι κατοικουντες ιερουσαλημ V. 22, id. 3:12 ανδρες ισραηλιται
Acts 13:16 ανδρες ισραηλιται και οι φοβουμενοι – (V. 26 και οι εν υμιν φοβουμενοι ) – τον θεον

The death of Jesus, which the Apostle to the Gentiles makes the center of his preaching and the foundation of the work of salvation in his letters, is in his speech in Antioch (Acts 13:27-30) a catastrophe that was brought about only by chance and only by the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders – a means that had to serve God, against the will of the wrongdoers, to prove Jesus as his chosen one by raising him from the dead – a means that incidentally served to bring salvation, which the inhabitants of the capital city rejected, to the foreign Jews and the Gentiles who had joined them as proselytes *) – – in the speeches of Peter, too, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders, in their ignorance, brought about the glorification that was destined for him when they denied the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 2:23-24, 3:14-15, 10:39-40).

*) 13:26, 27 υμιν . . . οι γαρ . . .

78

However, both Peter and Paul prove from the Psalm that this glorification was predetermined for the chosen one of God, in which the Holy One of God expresses his confidence that God will not let him see corruption. They both derive the necessity of the reference to Jesus from the fact that David cannot be this Holy One, as he died, was buried, and his tomb has been preserved to the present day and can still be seen (Acts 2:25-31, 13:35-37). Therefore, both apostles prove the necessity of the glorification of the Holy One of God from a Psalm, based on the impossibility of another assumption, namely that David himself is the Holy One, applying to this Psalm verse, just as Jesus in the original Gospel (Mark 12:35-37) shows the impossibility that the Messiah could be David’s son from the Psalm in which David calls the Messiah his Lord. The author of the Acts of the Apostles had this argument in mind and simply repeated it when he proved the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus from the Psalms – he even explicitly reveals his source when he, in Peter’s speech (Acts 2:33-35), cites the same Psalm in which the Jesus of the Gospel demonstrates the infinite superiority of the Messiah over David, and proves that the glorification of Jesus was divinely intended from the beginning, since the heavenly scene that the Psalm presupposes does not apply to David, “who did not ascend into heaven.” The author only gave the argument from the Psalm, which Jesus in the original Gospel used to prove his point, the twist that matched the previous argument from the other Psalm.

79

While Paul, in his speech in Antioch, presents the story of Jesus, his connection to the promise, and the tragedy that resulted in the proof of his divinity in exactly the same form as Peter had repeated several times before, the author is so careful to suppress any reminder of the sharpness with which Paul developed his opposition to the Law and the significance that the Apostle to the Gentiles attached to the suffering and death of the Savior. He succeeded to such an extent in flattening the level on which the arguments of the Apostle to the Gentiles moved that only in the speeches and statements of Peter can some keywords that remind us of Pauline doctrine be found, but of course only keywords.

Lost keywords of the doctrine of the only saving power of grace and faith are only when Peter reminds the apostles in Jerusalem that God made no distinction between them, the Jews, and the Gentiles and cleansed the hearts of the latter through faith, when he further proves that the attempt to put the yoke of the law on the Gentiles was an injustice because they, the apostles, and their fathers, were not able to bear it, and then concludes with the sentence that faith is common to them as well as to the Gentiles, that only the grace of Jesus Christ can save (15:9-11) — if these sentences had been more than just lost key words, they would also have had the power to force the resolution of the Jerusalem Council, which nevertheless prescribed abstinence from sacrifice to idols, from blood and from suffocation as indispensable for the believing Gentiles, Peter would have had to prove the indifference of these regulations and would never have been allowed to admit that they were the necessary norm of the faithful and that the observance of them was the testimony of their “earnest will” to behave well.

80

Only once, in the farewell speech of the Apostle to the Gentiles of Ephesus, does the Pauline reminiscence of the church of God occur, which he “acquired by his own blood” (C.20,28). ) – but it is only an “isolated”, accidental, inconsequential reminiscence, and if in the Antiochian discourse (C. 13, 38) there is also an allusion to the apostle’s use of language, that in Christ the believer is justified from all that from which the law of Moses could not justify, this allusion is even so inappropriately applied and processed that it only comes to the result that law and faith are not essentially, but only in degree, different from one another. The law, too, already had justifying power, but it could not yet provide justification for all sins – the law was already strong, but the Lord is stronger. The law was only insufficient, could not yet justify completely, was not yet able and victorious against all sins – the Lord, on the other hand, completes the power of the law, supplements its weakness, accomplishes what it still left him to do.

In the two speeches that the apostle makes to the pagans, namely in the speech with which he referred the people of Lystra to the living God and in the other speech at the Areopagus in Athens, the strong contrast disappears. There is no close relationship that the same Apostle gave to paganism and the One God of revelation; there is no room for the strenuous dialectic with which the Paul of the letters gives the God of Justice, after revealing his invisible nature to the Gentiles, the right to punish them; the strictness of the thought that those who have sinned without law must also be lost without law is finally missing – and that firm association of Gentiles and Jews under sin is not possible, thus leaving no room for pure grace. Incapable of firmly implementing a contrast, the author has made Christianity only a continuation and extension of Judaism, and now softens the contrast between paganism and Judaism. In his Enlightenment, he is an enemy of dialectics, which pushes contrasts to extremes – his liberalism, which forms its own ideal world, sees the sharpness of thought that goes to the root of the contrasts of the real world as a futile and cruel game.

81

God has not left Himself unwitnessed to the Gentiles, as the apostle in Lystra points out, but in what has He revealed Himself to them? He gave (C. 14, 16) rain and fruitful seasons from heaven and filled their hearts with food and drink.

Thus God, as it is said in the Athenian discourse, caused the Gentiles to seek him, whether they would take hold of him and find him (C. 27, 27) – but why could he count on this possibility? Because he is not far from each one of us – because we live and move and exist in him – because the Greek poet is right with his commonplace: “of the same family we are”.

82

We – we are his race – we live and breathe in him – to us – he has done much good and given us victories from heaven and fruitful times – to us, the Gentiles and Jews – we, the Gentiles and Jews live and breathe in him and are of the same divine race – in this shared, the antithesis of history, the antithesis of paganism and Judaism is abolished – there are only human beings, only the Jew is the true human being – Christianity is the true Judaism, paganism is the hidden Judaism.

The speech in Lystra ends with this reference to the common benefactor of humanity, because the author was only concerned with dissuading the people of Lystra from their idea that Paul and Barnabas were gods, and from their intention to sacrifice to them. However, when he gave the Apostle the opportunity to expound on his new teaching before a group of heathens in Athens, he completely forgot that he should have shown the reader, on this one occasion that he had created for himself, how Paul acquired the name of the Apostle to the Gentiles, and how he was able to win the hearts of the Gentiles. Instead, his Jewish nature overwhelms him; he cannot bring himself to represent, in all its power, the force that drew the Gentiles to Christianity – in other words, he fails to present the Apostle as the teacher of the Gentiles. This teacher and leader should have been at the same time the liberator from the law and the vanquisher of Judaism at the same time.

83

Therefore, the author has designed the whole narrative for a rather glaring contrast. The Jew in him moves him to present the matter in such a way that the Gentiles, as soon as they heard of the Risen One, immediately put an end to it and wanted to hear nothing more. The speech, which up to then had simply been monotheistically enlightened and contained nothing new or striking for the enlightened Gentile, had to conclude with this brief mention of the Risen One, so that the Jew – the Christian as the true Jew – could rejoice in his sublimity over the pagan sphere – the author finally made the resurrection the stone of offence on purpose, in order to give the reader’s judgement of the later behaviour of the Sadducees against the apostle the necessary direction in advance. While the sympathy which the Pharisees showed the apostle proves his conformity with Judaism, the Sadducees, who persecuted him because of his doctrine of the resurrection, are to be exposed as pagan-minded. Whoever was able to persecute the apostle was actually no longer a Jew, – had to be a pagan in the depths of his soul – therefore the Sadducees acted like the Athenians and therefore the latter had to ridicule the preaching of the resurrection.

When the author pursued this intention, he partially overlooked that he portrayed the teaching wisdom of the apostle in the most unfavorable light. Paul, according to this portrayal, understands so little how to captivate his audience that he cannot even force the seriousness of the assembly when he moves to the main point. Thus, he does not even satisfy the requirement that is rightfully placed on a teacher and speaker. The author also did not consider that the immortality of the soul was the subject of a controversy that the heathens liked to discuss extensively.

84

If it is so clear that the speech was made up by the author, then the details of his portrayal, which should have been familiar to anyone even moderately educated, cannot be considered as evidence for the historical character of the event. The Athenians were known throughout the world for their curiosity, talkativeness, and love of debate. To reproduce the charge made against Socrates – “he does not respect the gods of the city and seeks to introduce new ones” – in the mockery of the apostle as a “proclaimer of new gods,” as well as to invent the detail that Paul was brought to the Areopagus to explain his doctrine to the body responsible for religion, did not require any particular knowledge of history. Similarly, it was no secret that in Athens there were altars dedicated to unknown gods, but Paul would never have found an altar with the inscription “to the unknown god” in Athens, nor could he have linked his doctrine of the one and living God to such an inscription. Such an altar did not exist in Athens.

We only mention the farewell speech to the elders of Ephesus, whose later origin is evident from the fact that it reminds church officials, whose office arose later *), of their obligation to be vigilant against false teachers and sectarians, to show that the author did indeed know the Apostle of the Letters, as he unwittingly reveals this acquaintance, but he does not know how to harmoniously weave the features known from the letters into the new image he has drawn of the Apostle.

*) The author also knows the bishops (20:28), but he was careful not to include the whole detail of the later hierarchical constitution in his writing, and when he mentioned the bishops to indicate the greatness of their dignity and responsibility, he phrased it in such a way that it could also be interpreted as a description of the presbyters: “the Holy Spirit has made you overseers.”

85

That the apostle remembers the false teachers and seducers, with whom he is already fighting in the letters themselves, as a future danger to the church, we will only accept in passing as a testimony to the impression left by the apostle’s letters, so that the apostle’s image would be considered incomplete if he did not remember the false teachers, even if only as an imminent appearance. On the other hand, we may particularly emphasise the detail and discreetness with which the apostle remembers his self-sacrificing behaviour at the end of his speech, and the unmotivated way in which the author introduces this reminder of the apostle’s behaviour, as a brilliant testimony to the impression of the letters.

The apostle reminds us that he (C. 20, 33.34) does not demand silver, nor gold, nor clothing from anyone, but rather that he has procured his need with the work of his hands – but how does he arrive at this reminder? How does he come to affirm his generosity? No reason. There is no occasion for this – the reproach that alone could induce him to do this lies outside – in the Epistles to the Corinthians.

Or did the Apostle want to set an example for the elders? Did he want to motivate them to follow in his footsteps? The author certainly intended this turn of events – at least he has the Apostle immediately add the remark (v.35): “I have shown you everything, that one must work in this way and accept the weak” – but the expression “everything” goes far beyond the last point – that the Apostle showed how one must work refers to his entire activity and cannot be limited to his manual labor alone – finally, accepting the weak is a spiritual act and has nothing to do with renouncing justifiable support.

86

The author did not achieve his intention and could not naturally introduce the reminder of the apostle’s self-sacrifice. The allusion from the Epistles to the Corinthians was only inserted mechanically.

———–

After having demonstrated the weakness of the author’s imagination by pointing out the fact that in his speech in Antioch, Paul only repeated the phrases that had already been used by Peter in his speeches, the beginning of the same Antioch speech gives us the opportunity to complete this proof.

This introduction is a replica of Stephen’s speech – but at the same time also a weakening of it. While Stephen carries out an artfully designed plan firmly and securely, the whole Jewish history is characterised as a continuous disharmony between the divine plan of salvation and the rebelliousness of the people, so that even the fulfilment which Solomon finally gave to the divine promise to Abraham – (“in this place shall thy seed serve me”) – through the building of beautiful “temples”, the existing law affirms that the divine plans were turned into their opposite under the hands of this people – while Stephen proves from the deadly opposition in which the people placed themselves to Moses and the prophets, the betrayal which the present generation committed against the Messiah, as a natural expression of the national enmity against the holy spirit (7:51-52) – Paul only lists the earlier great deeds of God one after the other in the beginning of his Antiochian speech, so that the redemption of the descendants of David is only a continuation of the earlier graces, at best also the completion of the plan of salvation, which was also carried out in the extermination of the seven Canaanite nations (13:19).

87

The author could not use the same speech twice, but he was also unable to provide a copy of the original that could claim its own value through the uniqueness of its plan and execution.

Incidentally, this speech of Stephen’s is not able to overturn our earlier statement that real history remains a mystery as long as one holds on to this congregation of the Acts of the Apostles, these leaders and party heads. It is created, like all its surroundings and like the fate of Stephen.

The elaborate plan underlying it can only be designed and executed by the writer. The memory that could immediately grasp it, link by link, with all its intricate interweavings after a single hearing, belongs to the impossible, and a tradition that would be capable of reciting such a systematically elaborated work of art in one breath and always unchanged has never existed.

88

While in the history of the people, from the appearance of Moses onwards (C. 7, 23-53), the disharmony between the divine plan of salvation and the behavior of the people is the theme, in the introduction of the speech, the idea of ​​contradiction is also held and pursued by the speaker (C. 7, 3-16) by presenting the circumstance that the promise that his offspring would possess the promised land came to Abraham at a moment when he was a stranger in Canaan and had no child, and thus representing the contradiction between the divine plan and human probability, and proving this contradiction, as the divine promise even mocks all human calculation of probability, even in the fact that the sale of Joseph brought the patriarchs to Egypt and they were to grow into a people far from the promised land. But where is the memory that could immediately hold word for word this twofold development of the category of contradiction?

Where was the tradition that, in the repetition of the speech, would always have paid close attention to the point of incidence in the middle of it (vv. 35-37) and would always have remembered the significance that lies in the circumstance that the very Moses whom God had sent as leader and redeemer, and whom the people disowned and rejected, had prophesied of the future prophet whom the Lord would raise up like him?

The diffuse obscurity, finally, in which the contrast and contradiction of the promise that the people would serve God in this place and the sinful and perverse fulfilment that Solomon gave it by building the temple, remains, the obscurity that also hovers over it, why David, by his desire to find a permanent tabernacle for the God of Jacob, did not sin just as his son did by building the temple – should it have remained in memory and tradition for years, many years, perhaps a century, and have been preserved unchanged?

89

No! Like the whole thing, it comes from the writer.

Stephen is said to have been stoned to death. But he stood before the synod and the synod was not allowed to execute a death sentence independently of the Roman governor.

Of course, not even a sentence was pronounced – the crowd stormed him, pushed him out of the city and stoned him – but there was no room for this tumultuous crowd in the midst of the synod.

How exactly historical it looks that the witnesses laid down their clothes before the stoning – but what a coincidence that they met the place in front of the feet of the young man who was destined to complete the break with Judaism, which Stephen initiated, as Paul and to bring salvation to the Gentiles!

The defense speech of the martyr does indeed correspond to the accusation, which was based on the testimony of false witnesses who claimed that he had spoken blasphemy against the holy place and the law (6:13) – it is a pity, however, that the same accusation is made against Paul, the completer (21:28), and that false witnesses also came forward against the Lord, who claimed to have heard blasphemy against the temple from him (Mark 14:57-58).

Everything is all arranged, except for the fact that the angry mobs lead the martyr outside the city, so that he may find death outside where the Lord suffered – except for the move that the martyr, like his Lord, intercedes for the murderers hei God and commends his spirit to the Lord Jesus, as the Lord Himself had commanded his spirit into the hands of His Father (Luke 23:34, 46).

90

In short, neither the speech nor the martyrdom of Stephen can make this community, of which the Acts of the Apostles speaks, a real and historical entity. Therefore, when, for example, Dr. Baur says *), “the martyrdom of Stephen and the Christian persecution associated with it confront us with the significance of historical reality”, we lack the account that could really authenticate that martyrdom along with its consequences. And even if the same scholar insists **) that the contrast between Christianity and Judaism first “became more clearly conscious in Stephen”, we lack the historical sources that could attest to the existence of a Stephen who earned the first crown (stephanos) of martyrdom through initiating that break with Judaism.

*) op. cit. p. 38.

**) op. cit. p. 42.

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42

3.

The Conversion of Paul.

The differences between the author’s own account and the portrayal that Paul himself gives of his conversion before the people and later before King Agrippa will never be of practical service to those who wish to use them *) to eliminate some gaudy features and to move the event from its external appearance to the interior of the apostle. For example, if Paul says in his speech before the people (22:9) that his companions did not hear the voice of the Lord who spoke to him before Damascus, while the author tells the opposite in his historical account (9:7), we should not admire the fidelity of the tradition that carried Paul’s entire speech unchanged, nor the conscientiousness of the author who transmitted this deviating feature in the Apostle’s speech unchanged, even though he had given a different picture of the event in his historical account. Such a tradition, possessing a memory so mechanical and a breath so long that it could recite the same material in various forms unchanged, has never existed **). Moreover, even that deviation would not be able to turn the miracle into an internal occurrence of the mind. In his speech before the people, Paul also announces that the appearance of the Lord was a wonderful and truly visible one, and cites the fact that his companions also saw the heavenly light that flashed around him in the middle of the day and were terrified by the enormity, to confirm the sensory reality. It is irrelevant whether the companions heard the voice without seeing the one who spoke with Paul, or whether they saw the miraculous light, the envelope, the sensory body of the appearance and did not hear the voice – in both cases they were witnesses of the appearance, and only the author’s changing interest would lead him to shift the features of the picture and to put them in the opposing position. In his own account, he only wanted to establish the reality of the voice that Paul heard beyond doubt – that is why the companions must also hear it. *) Later, when Paul justifies himself before the people, he wanted to ensure the divine legitimacy of his mission against even the slightest doubt – that is why it must now be shown that Paul was really and solely the purpose of the appearance. He now hears the voice alone.

*) as, for example, also Dr. Baur, the Apostle Paul p. 64.

**) as is proven in my critique of the Gospels.

*) and he still followed the original most faithfully, which he used for his depiction. For he has before his eyes the description of the Viston of Daniel (Dan. 10:7), which the Prophet also saw alone, while his companions, who did not see it, were seized with horror – (at the miraculous voice). Dan. 10:6. καὶ ἡ φωνὴ τῶν λόγων αὐτοῦ ὡς φωνὴ ὄχλου. V. 7 καὶ εἶδον ἐγὼ Δανιηλ μόνος τὴν ὀπτασίαν καὶ οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ μετ᾿ ἐμοῦ οὐκ εἶδον τὴν ὀπτασίαν ἀλλ᾿ ἢ ἔκστασις μεγάλη ἐπέπεσεν ἐπ᾿ αὐτούς

43

The author proceeded as freely as later in the apostle’s speech before King Agrippa, in which Jesus (26:17) immediately at his first appearance appoints the apostle to the Gentiles, while in the earlier historical account (C. 9, 15) Ananias is the only means by which Paul could learn his new destiny, since circumstances led him to the field of his activity.

44

On the basis of the report of the Acts of the Apostles, the previous theological dispute as to whether the vision of the Apostle was a sensory = external or an internal one, is unfruitful – the effort to burden the later tradition with the disturbing sensory experience and yet to form a kind of historical course out of all the individual features, is fruitless, for the report knows only one course of events, the sensually miraculous one, and if it is no longer regarded with all its individual features *) as a witness to the miraculous event, then it no longer exists at all and is even deprived of any basis for the dispute about the nature of the phenomenon.

*) The apostle’s blindness and his healing from it is and remains a part of the miracle, and Dr. Baur tries in vain to make the former a spiritual affliction, the latter a spiritual orientation, and to attribute to tradition the transformation of the spiritual blindness into a physical one.

Without the account of the Acts of the Apostles, we know nothing of the way in which the conversion of the apostle took place – but as the account stands, it excludes any natural mediation of this change, any preparation by an inner struggle of the soul. Either one believes the account as it stands and believes the various accounts of the Acts of the Apostles, or one admits that this account tells us nothing about the conversion of the Christian persecutor and cannot tell us anything.

45

According to the premise of the Acts of the Apostles, Paul is so firmly established in Judaism, his conviction of the unconditional justification of the law is so certain, his will to uphold the law at all costs is so determined, that only heavenly power can win him over for the church and the conversion of the Gentiles.

His conviction, his will, his decision, his inclination do not and shall not come into consideration. He should not even fight within himself, should not waver, should not be inwardly broken or even inwardly involved with the world he is fighting against, but should be purely decided, a whole man, clear about himself and determined to assert the law and the Jewish privilege.

Although he is decided against the new teaching par excellence, he is nevertheless to be called – but since this calling happens against his will, the Lord Himself must intervene to make it possible, i.e. break his will and cast him down Himself.

Even at the moment when the Lord breaks him and throws him down, the new thing that hits him finds so little prepared place and point of contact within him that he lets the new thing pass him by and asks the Lord: “What do you want me to do?” and the Lord has to send him to the city so that he can learn from Ananias, who immediately receives the necessary revelation, what he has to do (9:6).

According to the Acts of the Apostles, this is the only course of events that Paul’s conversion had, and could only have, – the only necessary course of events, so that it would be beyond all doubt and certain that the Lord had called the man who was to bear His name before the nations, and the Lord had to draw His chosen witness to Himself with such striking force, so that the calling of the Gentiles and their justification would also be revealed as His work and His will.

46

It is only a continuation of this testimony when later the Holy Spirit, on a journey through Asia Minor, forbids the apostle to preach the word, and when finally in the vision at Troas the interpretation of this prohibition follows, when a man from Macedonia appears to him, who calls him to come over to Macedonia and help them; this call of the Lord (C. 16, 10) turns into an explicit command to stay in Corinth without fear, because there he has a many people. In Jerusalem the Lord appears to the apostle and tells him (C.23,11) that he has to go over to Macedonia and help them. ) that He will testify of Him in Rome as well as here in Jerusalem.

Visions and appearances reveal to the apostle his destiny – the author was therefore allowed to venture, in the lecture which Paul gives to the people, to change the opening which in the actual historical account of Paul’s conversion Ananias receives into one which the apostle himself received in the temple during his first sojourn in Jerusalem (22: 21) – and finally, after reporting all these visions, he was able to weave into the “Apostle’s” last account of his conversion the Lord’s reference to these following visions: – you shall be a witness of this, says the Lord already before Damascus (26:16), “what” you have seen, and of the visions in which I will yet manifest myself to you.

Like this reference to the later visions, like the transformation of the word to Ananias into a direct opening to Paul – like the visions that call the apostle to Europe, hold him in Corinth and point him to Rome, the vision that casts him down before Damascus and transforms him from the legal zealot into the apostle to the Gentiles is also created from the outset and is the free work of the writer of history.

47

Like the conversion of the Apostle to the Gentiles, the conversion of Cornelius by Peter is also created. The parallel goes so far that both miracles move through two interlocking visions.

The miracles that result in the conversion and baptism of the pagan Cornelius are also necessary, because without them none of the things that are brought about by them and only by them would have happened. The vision of the animals, all of which God has cleansed so that man no longer has the right to call some of them unclean and to shun them as such, is something entirely new for the apostle; it is connected neither to a previous development nor to an inner struggle of his spirit, it finds nothing related to it within himself; Peter does not even know how to interpret the vision and only a wonderful chain of circumstances into which he is drawn involuntarily unlocks his understanding of it.

As little as Cornelius, when the angel of the Lord commands him to fetch Peter, knows the intentions of heaven – (Peter must tell him what to do) (10:6) – so little does the apostle know, when he had followed the Lord’s call and is already in the house of Cornelius, what he should do with the pagan captain (V. 29). Only when he hears about Cornelius’ vision and realizes how it is connected with his own in a divinely intended context, he discovers that God does not show partiality (V. 34) and that all kinds of people who fear Him and do what is right are pleasing to Him, and therefore he wants to also take members of his community from the circle of the Gentiles – and even then it is still a wonder that, as a result of his preaching, the Spirit falls on the present Gentiles and they speak in tongues, which finally convinces him of what it is all about (v. 47) and that he cannot deny baptism to the called Gentiles.

48

What happened to Cornelius and his household is just as unprepared for in the history of the early Church up to that point, and just as unheard of and unexpected for the entire community of the apostle, so bewildering in fact, that the believers who accompanied Peter to Caesarea were horrified when they (10:45) experienced that even on the Gentiles the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out – in a phenomenon that contradicted all their notions and expectations; they could hardly come to terms with it, indeed, they were so reluctant to accept it that Peter had to calm them down expressly by remarking whether anyone could deny baptism to those who had received the Holy Spirit. Only reluctantly and subdued by a supernatural force, the believers of the circumcision bow to the unexpected event, admitting that they cannot prevent the water of baptism, which is flows over the barrier of Judaism to the nations. If it had depended on them alone, they would have denied the holy water to the Gentiles – if the Lord had not impelled Peter, the Gentile from Caesarea would have remained without the comfort of baptism – if the most extraordinary miracles had not intervened, the apostle himself would not have known what to do with the Gentile in the house of Cornelius.

49

That only a miracle, only the openly and unmistakably expressed will of heaven could bring about the admission of the Gentiles into the church, that therefore what happened in Caesarea had no basis and point of connection in the previous history of the church, was shown once again when Peter, on his return to Jerusalem, received the bitterest reproaches from the believers that he (11:2-3) had entered with uncircumcised men and had eaten with them.

Indeed, Peter also silences these dissatisfied ones (11:18) by explaining to them the miraculous course of the event that had troubled them – but if it was striking up to this point that an event which was decisive for the community had no preparatory elements within it, neither in the mind of its most important leader, and had to receive its possibility from heaven, it is now highly surprising that the great, decisive, and miraculously wrought and testified event was not actually decisive and did not have the consequences that it deserved.

The early church was not touched by the change that had taken place in Caesarea; as if heaven had not yet pronounced its judgement. Later, long after the Gentiles had really been won over, the believers in Judea demanded that those whom the Lord Himself had called should earn their blessedness through circumcision. All that had been done so far was therefore in vain, unsuccessful, forgotten, as good as unprecedented. Peter first has to remember (15:7) the deed that the Lord had done through him a long time ago – in the early days *) of the church, and James refers to Peter’s account of how the Lord first (v. 14) formed a people out of the Gentiles for His name, in order to enforce the freedom of the believing Gentiles from circumcision – – so only now does the event take effect? And Peter was the chosen means by which God won the firstfruits of the Gentiles?

*) ‘αφ ημερειν αρχαιων.

50

Peter was the first to bring the “Gentiles” to the church? And James says this at the same moment when Paul stood before the barriers of the Apostolic Convention “and awaited its pronouncement on the freedom of the Gentile Christians?

Only now does this event take effect? Is the original intention of heaven revealed?

Indeed! Only now can the author achieve his goals! That is why the event had to remain unsuccessful for so long, so that it could only now exert its true and original effect. Now Paul has already worked among the Gentiles and is waiting for the decision on his effectiveness before the Apostolic Convention – only now can it be shown that the deed God accomplished through Peter was done for his sake, so that his work among the Gentiles would be justified. Paul is justified through Peter.

The author already had this justification in mind when he reported and created the conversion of Cornelius. The purpose that Peter’s action serves also made this action possible.

The conquest of paganism is a deed that Peter accomplished. He alone deserves the honour, he alone has the merit of having broken through the obstacles of paganism. Paul is no longer a creator, he did not establish the freedom of the Gentile Christians, he did nothing special or unique when he brought the Gentiles to the Lord – Peter is the original, the creator, the pioneer.

51

This contradiction against the presupposition of the Pauline letters, according to which Peter is only the apostle of the circumcision, Paul the chosen and only apostle of the Gentiles, Schneckenburger tries in vain to eliminate by the remark that the appointment of Peter for the circumcision “does not exclude an exceptional activity of the kind represented by the conversion of Cornelius” *). The deed that Peter performed on Cornelius is “according to the account of the Acts of the Apostles not an exception and isolated, but a groundbreaking, forever decisive deed – one that sanctifies everything similar that follows it. This is how it is understood at the Apostles’ Convention by the Apostle James, and James advocates it as the author wants it to be understood.

*) op. cit. p 178.

Of course, after such a groundbreaking and sanctifying act, there should be no attacks on Paul’s way of acting on the part of the Jerusalem congregation – but Schneckenburger is also unable to resolve this contradiction, which the author of the Acts of the Apostles brings into his own premises, when he recalls **) “what a difference it is to succumb to the overwhelming impression of an evidently divine manifestation in a particular case and to now recognize the principle realized in his case in all cases, contrary to the entire previous way of thinking.”

**) op. cit., p. 179.

52

The revelation in the case of Cornelius was not a special case, but a sanctioning fact – an event of general significance, as the believers in Jerusalem, when Peter explained the events to them, expressly acknowledged that it was now *) clear that God had also given repentance to the Gentiles for life. If it was divine will that Cornelius received baptism – and that it was so was acknowledged by the initially reluctant Jewish Christians – then this will also had general, binding force for all times. Once the principle had been realised by God, even if only in one case – and that God had acted is expressly emphasised by James – no one was allowed to resist in the later cases in which the same principle was realised.

*) 11:18. ἄρα γε καί . . . .

So we are left with the absolutely correct explanation that James gives to the event of Caesarea: God Himself decided, for all times and cases, and decided through Peter as the chosen instrument, so that the same apostle, who in the Pauline epistles is preferably and only the apostle of the circumcision, is denied the title of conqueror of the Gentiles. Peter won the Gentiles of the church; Peter won the Gentiles their freedom.

Just as certainly, however, there remains the contradiction that the miracle of Caesarea remains unsuccessful, that the community of Jerusalem resists the freedom of the Gentiles despite the clear and for all times binding will of the Godhead itself – above all, there remains the contradiction, that the primitive apostles only remember this miracle when Paul had already begun to set the Gentile world in motion – finally, the contradiction that the whole interest of the Acts of the Apostles revolves around the recognition and appreciation of Paul’s effectiveness among the Gentiles.

53

Also in the Acts of the Apostles Paul is the only and real apostle to the Gentiles and yet Peter is his original, Peter deserves the glory and the merit of having founded the freedom of the Gentile Christians.

In other words: Peter wins over the Gentiles, convinces the Gentiles that the Gentiles are called – Peter legitimates and sanctions the effectiveness of Paul – Peter has the honour of the process – but since he is supposed to justify the real Apostle to the Gentiles, even through this legitimation the reproach against the latter resounds that he proceeded too boldly when he redeemed the Gentiles from the law, and too quickly when he gave up the privilege of the Jews over the Gentiles.

Even the tribute that the Acts of the Apostles pay to Peter is permeated by the memory of the earlier, real battle that Paul waged with Judaism and the latter against Paul, i.e. also by the memory of the old fact that Paul won over the nations.

The Acts of the Apostles bears witness to the victory that Judaism, i.e. Jewish interest in the church, won when it subjugated Paul and his life, deprived him of his originality and transferred his historical honour to Peter. The Christian Judaism of the Jews was far from overturning the undeniable and invincible fact that the Gospel also belonged to the nations; it also recognized Paul’s divine calling and his merit in the conversion of the Gentiles, but it only makes the effectiveness of the apostle to the Gentiles legitimate by sanctioning his action through the process of Peter. It even defends Paul against the accusation that he acted too quickly and hastily when he won the nations to the Gospel and at the same time freed them from the law – Peter’s deed is “his” protective and legal title – but this defence must, against its will, acknowledge that Paul was the creator and liberator.

54

The honour Peter wins is a late conquest of Judaism within the congregation – through the apologia, on the other hand, which Peter’s deed is supposed to serve, the memory of the earlier struggle against Paul and the deed as it appears in the Pauline epistles unmistakably resounds.

The honour that Peter wins is a late triumph over Judaism within the community – the apology, on the other hand, which Peter’s deed is supposed to serve, unmistakably echoes the memory of the earlier struggle against Paul and the facts as they appear in the Pauline epistles. The same relationship is repeated in another respect. If we consider how carefully the apostle of the epistles emphasises that he did not receive the gospel from men, but through direct revelation of the Lord (Gal. 1:12), and how he has to answer for the visions and revelations of the Lord against adversaries and enviers (2 Cor. 12:1), it is at least this much clear that the judgement of his apostolic reputation also depended on the judgement of his visions. Well then! The Acts of the Apostles recognise miraculous visions as a real source of divine revelation, but in such a way that they also confer the honour of this direct contact with the Lord on Peter and, through the revelations that the latter received, ensure the credibility of those that were given to Paul. Paul is not the only visionary — already Stephen, who initiated the break with the Jewish people, has a vision before the synod, in that the Son of Man appears to him sitting at the right hand of God, and Philip, one of the deacons of the early church, is directed by an angel (8:26) to the Ethiopian in need of salvation.

55

In the same way, as a result of the victory that Christian Judaism had claimed over him, after he had lost the glory of his own creative significance, Paul was surrounded by a multitude of witnesses, all of whom testified to his perfect conformity to the early church at Jerusalem and to his intimate connection with it.

Ananias, who is involved in the vision of Damascus and was supposed to open his calling on behalf of the Lord, is (22:12) a legally pious man who had a good reputation among the Jews who lived in Damascus. Barnabas, the deserving member of the early church, introduces him to the apostles in Jerusalem, stands up for him, since they shunned him at first and did not trust him, and tells (9:27) how the Lord Himself had called him. Since he was threatened with danger in Jerusalem, the brothers sent him to Tarsus (9:30) and from there Barnabas fetched him and led him to Antioch, where he had opened up a wide sphere of activity (11:25). With Barnabas he was then sent to the elders of the church of Jerusalem to hand over the proceeds of a collection that had been organised for the brethren in Judea at Antioch (11:30, 12:25). When he left Jerusalem again with Barnabas, he took John Mark with him, the same one in whose parental home Peter found the brothers gathered in prayer after his rescue from prison (12:12). Even now, when he left Antioch and started his first great missionary journey, he did not set out on his own initiative, he did not directly follow the voice of the Spirit, but the church received the revelation of the Spirit and the commission to “set apart Barnabas and Paul to the work to which they were called” and to send them into their ministry (13:2-3). Later on, it becomes clear that he is also closely associated with Philip, that deacon of the early church who baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. He stays with him in Caesarea, and the same prophet of the early church who, through his prophecy about the impending famine, had brought about the collection for Antioch, announces to him, as he binds his hands and feet, the fate that awaits him in Jerusalem (Acts 21:8-11).

56

Where this pragmatism has brought about the most conspicuous linking of the facts, its intention and origin will also be betrayed.
Why does Paul, although the Lord had already designated him as the apostle to the Gentiles (Acts 9:15), allow himself to be sent to Tarsus by the early church in Jerusalem when the Jews were plotting against him? Why does he remain here quietly until Barnabas fetches him to Antioch? Why is he resting while the Lord had sent him away from Jerusalem immediately among the Gentiles (Acts 22:18, 21)? How is it that the author completely suppresses the historical fact when he leaves the Gentile apostle idle in Tarsus, while later he cannot completely deny the impression of it?

But the question is not just about Paul. At the same moment when he sits idly in Tarsus, other threads are also left dangling that the author had previously thrown out, and other events continue to have necessary consequences without results, and only at the moment when Paul is called back to work, does the author pick up those threads again and allow the earlier events to lead to their consequences.

57

The whole church of Jerusalem was scattered after the execution of Stephen – only the apostles remained (8:1) – but why is nothing mentioned about the activity of the dispersed except what Philip did in Samaria and with the Ethiopian stranger? Why is the outward activity of the believers suddenly interrupted after it had begun so successfully? Why does Philip leave Caesarea after such a promising beginning (8:40)? Why is he forgotten, why are the dispersed not remembered – why does the whole work abroad stop?

Why do the dispersed, after being completely forgotten, reappear so late and so suddenly? Why is their effectiveness in the circle of the Greeks at Antioch – at least the effectiveness that some Cyprians and Cyreneans among them were found in the circle of those Greeks *) – introduced as a consequence of the preceding?

*) Namely only this second part of the whole sentence 11:19-20, that they spoke to the Greeks (ελαλουν προς τοις ελληνας) is introduced by the “therefore” in the beginning of the sentence (οι μεν ουν).

Why? Nothing could be clearer! The preceding, on which the conversion of the Antiochian Greeks depends, is Peter’s great deed to Cornelius – the miraculous event which (11:18) also brings the believers in Jerusalem to the conviction that God has given the Gentiles repentance for life. Those foreign Jews who addressed the Greeks in Antioch with their sermon are said not to have “heard” directly of Peter’s deed, not to have been directly dependent on the pioneer – but they did not break ground themselves either. It “turned out that now, when Peter had opened the way, they preached the gospel to the Greeks. Only now, when Peter had gone ahead, was it proper for others to come forward and address the Gentiles. It was only now that Paul was to leave – that is why the early church sent Barnabas to Antioch to see the work there, and Barnabas, having seen the grace of God in the Gentiles, brought Paul from Tarsus and introduced him into his congregation.

58

The whole thing is a pragmatic machine, made to give Peter the glory of having been the first to bring divine grace to the Gentiles. Just as a machine is mechanically brought to a standstill by a pressure, so the external work that had already begun suddenly comes to a standstill – Philip celebrates in Caesarea, the scattered members of the early church have all but disappeared, even Paul has to “idle away” in Tarsus – only after Peter’s action is the machinery set in motion again: the scattered preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and Paul is now allowed to enter into fine work.

Mechanically, as the machine is set in motion, it is also put together by the author. Not to mention that he wanted to precede Paul’s appearance with the general, great prelude, which continued in the suffering of the Apostle to the Gentiles, he also needed the dispersal of the church in Jerusalem for the purpose of initiating the conversion of the Gentiles in “Antioch”. But at the same time, the apostles in Jerusalsem were still important to him, so they must be spared from the general persecution and remain in the temple city. The opponents must spare the heads of the hated sect and exempt them from persecution. For the following story of Paul, he needs the whole original congregation in Jerusalem – that is why it is there immediately after the general dispersion and in spite of it. He needs a calm and solid foundation for the operation of his machine – therefore the persecution is suddenly forgotten and the church in all Judea, Galilee and Samaria has rest and peace (9:1).

59

He summons the storm and summons it up again as he pleases – after Paul has already begun his work, he even causes the storm (C. 12) to rumble again *), but the machine will never become real history and those who nevertheless want to erect a historical edifice on the work of this man and interpret the dispersion of the church in such a way **) that as a result of an inner conflict only the Hellenists had reason to fear the fury of the Jews, while the “Judaizers” on the other hand remained and could remain, are building on an untenable foundation. As long as one continues to speak of this church, which presupposes the Acts of the Apostles, to make assumptions about the relationship of the “party” which it assumes, to hold fast to these men whom it calls the leaders and heads of the party, so long will one not arrive at the real history. In order to get to the bottom of history, one must dig deeper and first remove the chimerical construction of the Acts of the Apostles.

*) The execution of James, brother of John, by Herod, an event whose historical character we have to examine only in the context of the examination of all the statements of James.

**) such as Dr. Baur, op. cit. p. 38, 39.

60

Like the machinery that suddenly stands still for Peter’s sake, only to be set in motion again by Peter, the report of the Apostles’ Convention will also fall to the ground.

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The German text that I used for the translation is on Google Books:
Die Apostelgeschichte: eine Ausgleichung des Paulinismus und des Judenthums innerhalb der christlichen Kirche.

• Title page and Foreword
• 1. Miracle Workers (p.7)
• 2. How Miracles Help (p. 25)
• 3. Conversion of Paul (p. 42)
• 4. The Apostolic Convention (The Jerusalem Council) (p. 60)
• 5. The Speeches of Paul (p. 76)
• 6. Paul as Apologist (p. 90)
  • • The Legalism of the Apostle (p. 92)
    • The Defence Speeches of the Apostle (p. 102)
    • The Apologetic Framework of the Apostle (p. 110)
• 7. The Point of View of the Author of Acts (p. 114)
• 8. The Composition of Acts (p. 125)