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3.1 - A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age
The Christianity of Paul
Jewish Scholar from Tarsus
Paul was born in Tarsus, the capital of the province of Cilicia, in Asia Minor, and one of the great literary centers of the world. [Tarsus was already an important city in the time of Xenophone; and Strabo celebrates the literary character of the place, ranking its citizens even above those of Athens and Alexandria in their love of learning and their devotion to all things intellectual.]
It is significant that his native place was a large and important city, renowned for its educational advantages, and proud of its Greek culture and uncommon devotion to intellectual pursuits. It would be a most surprising thing if a man of Paul’s mental caliber had not been more or less affected by the atmosphere that prevailed in such a place, and if he had not revealed throughout his life the influence of his early surroundings.
That he got the greater part of his education in Jerusalem seems to be implied in Acts 22:3, and is confirmed by all that we know of him from his epistles. But in spite of that fact, his pride in his native place, and his affection for it, remained with him [Acts 21:39], and his subsequent career shows that his student life in Jerusalem did not efface the impression of the years spent at home in Tarsus, and did not stifle the instincts and impulses acquired there.
That he had a regular Greek education may well be doubted. It was not the custom for strict Jews to give their children such training, and Paul’s epistles betray neither a wide knowledge of Greek literature nor a command of good Greek style. [The quotations from Greek authors which have been pointed out in his epistles and speeches (1 Cor. 15:32; Titus 1:12; Acts 17:28), count for nothing, even though it be granted that all of them are really Paul’s, for they are such as might have been picked up by anybody in his intercourse with educated heathen. Paul’s style is Hebraistic, and is far from being the style of a man educated in the Greek schools.]
And yet, even without such an education, there must have been much in the general culture of the community whose influence a youth of his intellectual alertness could not help feeling, even unconsciously to himself. It is certain that his manners were those of a citizen of the world familiar with the habits of good society, that he had the facile adaptability of a cosmopolite, and that he felt himself at home amid all surroundings and in association with all classes of people.
Wherever he might be, he was mater of the situation, and he displayed the same assurance and address whether in the presence of the superstitious rabble of Lystra, of the supercilious scholars of Athens, or of magistrates, proconsuls, and princes. [Acts 13, 16, 24 sq.]
There was nothing provincial either in his tastes or tendencies. Strict Jew though he was, he had the instincts and the interests of a Roman citizen, and of a resident of a busy and cultured city of the world. Doubtless his social position also had something to do with the characteristics which he displayed along these lines.
He was the son of a Roman citizen [Acts 23:28], and he came, therefore, from an honorable, and very likely wealthy, family, whose dignity and influence must have been considerable; [that he was in comparative poverty during at least a part of his missionary career (1 Thess. 2:9, Phil 4:16) proves nothing to the contrary] for citizenship meant a great deal in his day. But it was not simply in his manners, and in his tastes and interests, that Paul revealed the influence of Tarsus; his philosophical and theological conceptions were also molded to no small degree by certain intellectual tendencies that were abroad in the Greek world of the period. That he was consciously the pupil of Hellenic or Hellenistic thinkers, or that he was familiar with their writings, is altogether unlikely; [Pfleidere maintains that Paul knew and used the Hellenistic Book of Wisdom, but the parallelisms which he points outs hardly do more than show that Paul felt to some extent the influences that were felt by the author of that book] but that he imbibed something of the spirit which voiced itself in them cannot be denied.
But though Paul was a Hellenist, and though he felt the influence of the world at large, and absorbed something of its spirit, he was, above all, a “Hebrews of Hebrews,” [Phil. 3:5] sprung evidently from strict Jews and himself thoroughly steeped in the traditions an prejudices of his fathers.
He was educated in Jerusalem, as was natural for the son of parents of wealth and orthodox principles, and under the tutelage of the greatest rabbinic authorities of the age. His thorough Jewish training appears plainly in all his writings. He thought like a Hebrew and wrote like a Hebrew. His familiarity with the Scriptures, which constituted the basis of Jewish education, was very great, as was also his acquaintance with the interpretations of the schools.
He used the Scriptures throughout his life just as they were used by all the Jewish theologians of his day. There is in his epistles the same emphasis upon the divine character of the sacred writings, resulting in their elevation almost to an equality with God himself; and the same idea of their inspiration which prevailed in the Jewish schools, and which led to the treatment of the Scriptures as a mere collection of oracles, that might be torn form their context and applied to any subject and in any way that seemed desirable, and which led also inevitably to the use of the allegorical and typical method of interpretation.
Paul, to be sure, was very much freer than most of his contemporaries form exegetical vagaries, and his Scripture interpretation was comparatively sober. But there are not a few notable instances in which he follows the common custom, and shows in a striking way the influence of his training. Thus, in 1 Cor. 9:9, he interprets the command, “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth the corn,” as referring not to oxen, but only of Christian apostles, on the ground that God cannot care for mere brutes; and in Gal. 4:22 sq., he makes Hagar represent the covenant of law and Sarah the covenant of grace.
In the famous passage, Gal.3: 16, we have a striking example of the common rabbinic method of building an elaborate argument upon the form of a single word. The Old Testament statement that the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed is interpreted to refer to Christ, because the passage says “seed” and not “seeds”. The subtle dialectic method of argument, which Paul emplys so freely, especially in Galatians and Romans, is also characteristically rabbinic, and he repeats without question in his epistles not a few traditions which were current in the Jewish schools of the day. [Cf. especially 1 Cor. 10:4, where Paul speaks of the rock that followed the children of Israel.].
He shows himself, in fact, a man well versed in rabbinic modes of thought and thoroughly familiar with rabbinic lore.
Used by permission of the publisher.
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