Pauline Christianity Comes into Existence
By Ali Unal
Jesus’ adherents, both during his lifetime and centuries following him, suffered cruelties and persecutions in the wild, merciless clutches of Roman paganism and Jewish hypocrisy. These self-sacrificing men that traveled from city to city to invite people to the Divine Religion were so tortured that they had to build their temples underground and on high mountains as seen in some regions of Turkey such as 'Tarsus, Antioch and Kayseri' (Caeserea). Following their honorable history, we come across a man named Paul or Saul. This jew was one of those who inflicted the most pitiless cruelties on Christians. While mentioning him in Acts, Bibles read that “he tried to destroy the Church; going from house to house, dragged out the believers, both men and women, and threw them into jail: (8:3) and kept up his violent threats of murder against the followers of the Lord. (9:1) But later we see that he converted, if he really did:
“As Saul was coming near the city of Damascus, suddenly a light from the sky flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul. Why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” he asked.
“l am Jesus, whom you persecute”, the voice said. But get up and go into the city, where you will be told what you must do.”
The men who were travelling with Saul had stopped, not saying a word; they heard the voice but could not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground and opened his eyes, but could not see a thing. So they took him by the hand and led him into Damascus. For three days he was not able to see, and during that time he did not eat or drink anything.
“There was a Christian in Damascus named Ananias. He had a vision, in which the Lord said to him: “Ananias.”
“Here I am, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord said to him, “Get ready and go to Straight Street, and at the house of Judas ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying. I have chosen him to serve me, to make my name known to Gentiles and kings and to the people of Israel. And I myself will show him all that he must suffer for my sake”... (9:3-17).
This story seems forged by Saul himself, for both Gospels, as will be explained below, and Acts are no more than recordings of what Jesus and Apostles did and said by some second or third hands, and devoid of chains of transmittence. Besides, Gospels are not the Bible which was revealed directly to Jesus, thus their authenticity depending on the narrators and ‘the course of time.’ Moreover, the early Church Fathers did not accept them as Divine Scriptures; they regarded them as recordings of Jesus’ life. So, to believe in the story quoted above we don’t have a second witness other than Saul himself; moreover, we have some significant arguments as to its being forged by a man, Saul, who was a zealous enemy of Christianity and a member of a nation that felt obliged to resort to such a design to destroy Christianity from within.
In the story quoted above, Saul addresses the light encircling him as ‘Lord’, which was used by the Apostles to call Jesus. How could it be that the one who hadn’t believed in Jesus called him ‘Lord? And, how could it be that he knew that the one who called him was Jesus, and addressed him ‘Lord? Yes, miracles did what they did and a miraculous light together with a miraculous dream caused Saul to convert into Christianity! We think such a story might have been attractive and reasonable to the followers of Jesus, who were fascinated by lots of miracles he had worked. After his conversion, Saul, as narrated in Acts, travalled with Barnabas, and when he began to spread his wrong beliefs, the latter left him.
Now, let’s have a glance at how Saul corrupted Christianity, reading his letters to Romans:
“As to his divine holiness, he was shown with great power to be the Son of God by being raised from death. Through him God gave me the privilege of being an apostle for the sake of Christ, in order to lead people of all nations to believe and obey. This also includes you who are in Rome, whom God has called to belong to Jesus Christ. And so I write to all of you in Rome whom God loves and has called to be his own people.” (Romans: 1:4-7).
“If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law you might as well never have been circumcised. The heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law...(2: 25,29)
“God offered him, so that by his sacrificial death he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him.. In this way God shows that He himself is righteous and that he puts right everyone who believes in Jesus. What, then, can we boast about. Nothing. And what is the reason for this? Is it that we obey the Law? No, but that we believe.” (3: 25-27).
“Now that we have been put right with God through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ... For when we were still helpless, Christ died for the wicked at the time that God chose... We were God’s enemies, but He made us His friends through the death of His son. Now that we are God’s friends, how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life. (5: 1,6,9,11).
“As far as the Law is concerned, you also have died because you are part of the body of Christ.. Shall we say, then, that the Law itself is sinful. Of course not. But it was the Law that made me know what sin is. If the Law had not said, “Do not desire what belongs to someone else”, I would not have known such a desire. But by means of that commandment sin found its chance to stir up all kinds of selfish desires in me...”(7: 4,7,8)
What is the meaning of these words, which resemble much of Greek philosophy? First of all, we mustn’t forget that Saul was addressing the Romans, who were the most bitter enemies of Christianity for tens of years and inflicted them with the most brutal tortures. Besides, Romans were pagans but Christianity, like all other Divine religions, was based upon the Divine Unity, and with the rise of Christianity began a bitter conflict between these two religions. Saul, who might have desired to reconcile them, or to corrupt Christianity on behalf of Judaism, accomplished a terrible revolution in Christianity by making it devoid of its Law first. As we will explain below elaborately, this revolution resulted in inserting in Christianity the beliefs of ‘Trinity, Incarnation, the original sin and Atonement’, which are not to be found even in the four Canonical Gospels.
Saul denied the use of ‘actions’ in saving oneself from God’s chastisement, and he abolished the Law though we read in the Gospels that Christ himself insisted on actions:
“Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to his word; instead put it into practice. (James: 1:22) My brothers, what good is it for someone to say that he has faith if his actions do not prove it. Can that faith save him. (2:14) So it is with faith; if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead.” (2: 14,17) Do not criticize one another, my brothers, Whoever criticizes a Christian brother or judges him, criticizes the Law and judges it. If you judge the Law, then you are no longer one who obeys the Law, but one who judges it. God is only the Lawgiver and judge. He alone can save and destroy. Who do you think you are to judge your fellowman.” (4: 11,12)
Two kinds of Christianity we are before, one that of Saul, the other of James. Which is the original and right? James was one of the Apostles of Jesus, but Saul wasn’t. While James insisted on action in saving oneself, Saul totally neglected it. James told about strict obedience to the Law, but Saul abolished it, and by doing this, he wedded Christianity which was made devoid of its Law, which means the guarding walls of a religion, to the Roman paganic system. If we ask Christians how they regard both James and Saul as right, we wonder how they will answer us.
Saul also abolished circumcision, which has been a tradition since the time of Prophet Abraham (p.b.u.h.) We read in Bible and Acts that Abraham and his descendants were circumsized and Jesus himself enjoined circumcision. In Acts Stephen told that “God gave to Abraham the ceremony of circumcision as a sign of the covenant. So Abraham circumcised Isaac a week after he was born: Isaac circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob circumcised his twelve sons, the famous ancestors of their (‘our’ in the original text) race”, and, while being stoned he shouted at members of the synagogue of the Freedmen: “How stubborn you are. How uncircumcised your hearts and ears. You are just like your ancestors; you too have always resisted the Holy Spirit.” (Acts: 7)
To cut it short, we had better scrutinize into the Gospels in order to know whether the principal beliefs of Christianity of Saul, which have separated it from its Original and the Unity-based Divine religions, are possible to be found in Canonical Gospels themselves: