Friday, July 27, 2007 at 12:12am
Summer reading with St. Paul
Column: God Said What?
St. Paul has always been a difficult figure for me.
In the letters attributed to Paul we find stark theological insights along with sexist household codes. We find hymns, pastoral advice and a sharp intellect along with sarcasm, muddled thinking, tirades and personal messages to people now long gone.
If that weren't enough, his letters are much dryer than the stories of the gospels, the words of the prophets and wisdom literature and the drama of the Pentateuch. And current scholarship on Paul's letters, what they mean and who wrote them, hasn't been extremely helpful in making him understandable to ordinary people.
Paul, though, is a pivotal figure in Christianity and one with whom all Christians should get acquainted. Our religious tradition bears the mark of Paul's influence. We can't understand the earliest Church, let alone later figures such as Augustine and Luther, without first knowing Paul.
That's why anyone interested in the early church should read "Paul: His Story" by Catholic scholar Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a Dominican priest who has been professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise in Jerusalem for many decades.
"Paul: His Story" provides a sound basis for understanding Paul's life and letters. In it, Murphy-O'Connor reconstructs the first-century world of the Eastern Mediterranean convincingly and provides an engrossing overview of this important figure in Christian history.
He reminds his readers that Paul was not a systematic theologian and that his letters should not be treated as treatises on theology. Instead, his letters were pastoral guidance given to small Christian communities that were dealing with specific problems. Paul's letters are a treasure trove of theological insight, but they aren't systematic theology. In order to understand Paul's letters, you have to know what was going on in the community to whom he was writing and the perspective that Paul was coming from.
Murphy-O'Connor uses this method of reading Paul to make some unique arguments about Paul and his letters. For example, he claims that the Letter to the Colossians was truly written by Paul and not a later imitator, as many scholars have claimed. This is because, Murphy-O'Connor argues, the famous hymn that is cited in the letter is a Colossian hymn that Paul is criticizing rather than repeating as worship. Murphy-O'Connor claims that the Colossians had been dabbling in a mystical practice in which people were supposed to be able to take part in the angels' worship of God in heaven. Even though this wasn't as harmful as what a community like the Corinthians was up to, Paul didn't like this practice. And he told the Colossians to cut it out because it was getting in the way of loving their neighbors and building the Body of Christ in the community.
Also, Murphy-O'Connor's take on Paul and free will is interesting. The author claims that Paul saw most people as not being free. Instead, he saw them as imprisoned by sin on multiple social levels. Everyone was human, so everyone already had the capacity of free will. At the same time, many could not fully use their free will because they were enslaved to poverty, oppression, vice, wealth, etc. They were idolaters and slaves rather than free human beings.
As Murphy-O'Connor points out, sin for Paul is the state in which "the authentic self was alienated. From his own experience as a traveling missionary, Paul learned that people were not selfish because they chose to be. They were forced to put number one first in order to survive. Their pattern of behavior was dictated by irresistible societal pressures. They were controlled by a force greater than any individual, the value system which had developed within their society."
In response to the compulsive power of sin, a community of believers was the only remedy. "Paul was led eventually to see that something much more fundamental than cooperation was necessary for spiritual survival against the power of Sin. The radical divisions of society could be repaired only by the shared existence of community."
This also affected how Paul viewed the crucifixion. "Prior to Christ, it was taken for granted that the primary goals of human existence should be survival, comfort and success. In light of Christ's radical altruism, such a life-style can only be perceived as the 'death' of selfishness. It is the antithesis of genuine 'life,' which is totally concerned with benefiting the other."
Only by dedicating one's life to a community based on self-sacrificial love did one then have the possibility of exercising free will. The community allowed the individual to be free from enslavement to idols, poverty and oppression. That's why Murphy-O'Connor jokes that for Paul there was no damnation outside the church.
Jerome Murphy-O'Connor is a serious scholar, and, like much of his writing, this book is meant for a wide audience. It is engaging, readable and gives deep insight into the world, life and mind of St. Paul. Murphy-O'Connor also gives good treatment to Paul's real views on women in ministry: Paul encouraged women to hold positions of leadership.
For me, this book has helped to show that Paul was not a systematic theologian but a pastor. He was writing to address specific pastoral problems in a specific time and place. When viewed in this light, Paul's thinking has great depths to be mined for theological and spiritual insight.
Paul may still not be fully understandable. After all, he wrote to communities in a different time and place. But he becomes much more relevant. And his theological insights and concerns for the loving community remain a challenge to us.
(Two other works of Jerome Murphy-O'Connor that go well with this one are "Paul: A Critical Life" and "Becoming Human Together: The Pastoral Anthropology of St. Paul.")
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Recently he was married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.
In the letters attributed to Paul we find stark theological insights along with sexist household codes. We find hymns, pastoral advice and a sharp intellect along with sarcasm, muddled thinking, tirades and personal messages to people now long gone.
If that weren't enough, his letters are much dryer than the stories of the gospels, the words of the prophets and wisdom literature and the drama of the Pentateuch. And current scholarship on Paul's letters, what they mean and who wrote them, hasn't been extremely helpful in making him understandable to ordinary people.
Paul, though, is a pivotal figure in Christianity and one with whom all Christians should get acquainted. Our religious tradition bears the mark of Paul's influence. We can't understand the earliest Church, let alone later figures such as Augustine and Luther, without first knowing Paul.
That's why anyone interested in the early church should read "Paul: His Story" by Catholic scholar Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a Dominican priest who has been professor of New Testament at the Ecole Biblique et Archeologique Francaise in Jerusalem for many decades.
"Paul: His Story" provides a sound basis for understanding Paul's life and letters. In it, Murphy-O'Connor reconstructs the first-century world of the Eastern Mediterranean convincingly and provides an engrossing overview of this important figure in Christian history.
He reminds his readers that Paul was not a systematic theologian and that his letters should not be treated as treatises on theology. Instead, his letters were pastoral guidance given to small Christian communities that were dealing with specific problems. Paul's letters are a treasure trove of theological insight, but they aren't systematic theology. In order to understand Paul's letters, you have to know what was going on in the community to whom he was writing and the perspective that Paul was coming from.
Murphy-O'Connor uses this method of reading Paul to make some unique arguments about Paul and his letters. For example, he claims that the Letter to the Colossians was truly written by Paul and not a later imitator, as many scholars have claimed. This is because, Murphy-O'Connor argues, the famous hymn that is cited in the letter is a Colossian hymn that Paul is criticizing rather than repeating as worship. Murphy-O'Connor claims that the Colossians had been dabbling in a mystical practice in which people were supposed to be able to take part in the angels' worship of God in heaven. Even though this wasn't as harmful as what a community like the Corinthians was up to, Paul didn't like this practice. And he told the Colossians to cut it out because it was getting in the way of loving their neighbors and building the Body of Christ in the community.
Also, Murphy-O'Connor's take on Paul and free will is interesting. The author claims that Paul saw most people as not being free. Instead, he saw them as imprisoned by sin on multiple social levels. Everyone was human, so everyone already had the capacity of free will. At the same time, many could not fully use their free will because they were enslaved to poverty, oppression, vice, wealth, etc. They were idolaters and slaves rather than free human beings.
As Murphy-O'Connor points out, sin for Paul is the state in which "the authentic self was alienated. From his own experience as a traveling missionary, Paul learned that people were not selfish because they chose to be. They were forced to put number one first in order to survive. Their pattern of behavior was dictated by irresistible societal pressures. They were controlled by a force greater than any individual, the value system which had developed within their society."
In response to the compulsive power of sin, a community of believers was the only remedy. "Paul was led eventually to see that something much more fundamental than cooperation was necessary for spiritual survival against the power of Sin. The radical divisions of society could be repaired only by the shared existence of community."
This also affected how Paul viewed the crucifixion. "Prior to Christ, it was taken for granted that the primary goals of human existence should be survival, comfort and success. In light of Christ's radical altruism, such a life-style can only be perceived as the 'death' of selfishness. It is the antithesis of genuine 'life,' which is totally concerned with benefiting the other."
Only by dedicating one's life to a community based on self-sacrificial love did one then have the possibility of exercising free will. The community allowed the individual to be free from enslavement to idols, poverty and oppression. That's why Murphy-O'Connor jokes that for Paul there was no damnation outside the church.
Jerome Murphy-O'Connor is a serious scholar, and, like much of his writing, this book is meant for a wide audience. It is engaging, readable and gives deep insight into the world, life and mind of St. Paul. Murphy-O'Connor also gives good treatment to Paul's real views on women in ministry: Paul encouraged women to hold positions of leadership.
For me, this book has helped to show that Paul was not a systematic theologian but a pastor. He was writing to address specific pastoral problems in a specific time and place. When viewed in this light, Paul's thinking has great depths to be mined for theological and spiritual insight.
Paul may still not be fully understandable. After all, he wrote to communities in a different time and place. But he becomes much more relevant. And his theological insights and concerns for the loving community remain a challenge to us.
(Two other works of Jerome Murphy-O'Connor that go well with this one are "Paul: A Critical Life" and "Becoming Human Together: The Pastoral Anthropology of St. Paul.")
— — —
Kevin Considine is a graduate student at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Recently he was married to a most wonderful woman who keeps him in line and reads his columns to see if they make sense. He and his wife live on the South Side of Chicago. He welcomes comments, feedback or fits of anger and can be reached at {email considkp@yahoo.com}considkp@yahoo.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Kevin Considine.