The Origin of Paul's Religion

by J. Gresham Machen

Four of the Pauline Epistles—Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Romans—were accepted as certainly genuine by F. C. Baur, the founder of the "Tübingen School" of criticism in the former half of the nineteenth century. This favorable estimate of the "major epistles" has never been abandoned by any number of really serious historians, and three of the other epistles—1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon—have now been added to the "homologoumena." Seven epistles, therefore, are accepted as genuine to-day by all historians except a few extremists. Of the remaining epistles, Colossians is accepted by the majority of investigators of all shades of opinion, and even in the case of 2 Thessalonians and Ephesians, the acceptance of the hypothesis of genuineness is no longer regarded as a clear mark of "conservatism," these two epistles being regarded as genuine letters of Paul by some even of those who are not in general favorable to the traditional view of the New Testament.

With regard to the Pastoral Epistles—1 and 2 Timothy and Titus—the issue is more clearly drawn. These epistles, at least in their entirety, are seldom regarded as genuine except by those who adopt in general the traditional view of the New Testament and the supernaturalistic conception of the origin of Christianity. That does not mean that the case of the Pastoral Epistles is desperate—certainly the present writer is firmly convinced that the epistles are genuine and that a denial of their genuineness really impoverishes in important respects our conception of the work of Paul—but it does mean that with regard to these epistles the two great contending views concerning the New Testament come into sharp conflict; common ground, in other words, cannot here be found, as in the case of the major epistles, between those who hold widely divergent views as to the origin of Christianity.

It would be out of place in the present connection to discuss the question of the genuineness of the Pastorals. That question is indeed enormously important. It is important for the view which is to be held concerning the New Testament canon; it is important for any estimate of Christian tradition; it is important even for a complete estimate of the work of Paul. But it is not directly important for the question as to the origin of Paulinism; for all the essential features of Paulinism, certainly all those features which make Paulinism, upon naturalistic principles, most difficult of explanation, appear plainly in the accepted epistles.

The question of the Book of Acts, on the other hand, is of vital importance even for the present investigation. Even that question, however, must here be dismissed with a word, though it is hoped that light may be shed upon it by the whole of the following discussion.

Literary evidence of peculiar strength may be adduced in favor of the view that the Book of Acts was really written, as tradition affirms, by a companion of Paul. This evidence is based primarily upon the presence in the book of certain sections where the narrative is carried on in the first person instead of the third. It is generally or even universally admitted that these "we-sections" are the work of an eyewitness, an actual traveling companion of Paul. But according to the common-sense view—according to the first impression made upon every ordinary reader—the author of the we-sections was also the author of the whole book, who when he came in his narrative to those parts of the missionary journeys of Paul where he had actually been present with the apostolic company naturally dropped into the use of the first person instead of the third. If this common-sense view be incorrect, then a later author who produced the completed book has in the we-sections simply made use of an eyewitness source. But this hypothesis is fraught with the most serious difficulty. If the author of the completed book, writing at a time long after the time of Paul, was in the we-sections using the work of a companion of Paul, why did he not either say that he was quoting or else change the "we" of the source to "they." The first person plural, used without explanation by a writer of, say, 100 A.D. in a narrative of the journeys of Paul, would be preposterous. What could be the explanation of so extraordinary a procedure?

Only two explanations are possible. In the first place, the author may have retained the "we" with deceitful intent, with the intent of producing the false impression that he himself was a companion of Paul. This hypothesis is fraught with insuperable difficulty and is generally rejected. In the second place, the author may have retained the "we" because he was a mere compiler, copying out his sources with mechanical accuracy, and so unable to make the simple editorial change of "we" to "they." This hypothesis is excluded by the striking similarity of language and style between the we-sections and the rest of Luke-Acts, which shows that if the author of the completed double work is in the we-sections making use of a source written by some one else, he has revised the source so as to make it conform to his own style. But if he revised the source, he was no mere compiler, and therefore could not have retained the first person plural which in the completed book produced nonsense. The whole hypothesis therefore breaks down.

Such considerations have led a number of recent scholars—even of those who are unable to accept the supernaturalistic account which the Book of Acts gives of the origin of Christianity—to return to the traditional view that the book was actually written by Luke the physician, a companion of Paul. The argument for Lucan authorship has been developed with great acumen especially by Von Harnack[13]. And on the basis of purely literary criticism the argument is certainly irrefutable. It can be refuted, if at all, only through a consideration of the historical contents of the book.

Such attempts at refutation have not been lacking; the Lucan authorship of Acts is still rejected by the great majority of those who maintain the naturalistic view of the origin of Christianity. The objections may be subsumed under two main heads. The Book of Acts, it is said, is not the kind of book that could have been written by a companion of Paul, in the first place because it contains an account of miracles, and in the second place, because it contradicts the Pauline Epistles, particularly in the account which it gives of the relations between Paul and the Jerusalem Church.

The former objection is entirely valid on the basis of any naturalistic account of the origin of Christianity. Efforts have indeed been made by Von Harnack, C. C. Torrey, and others, to overcome the objection. Belief in miracles, it is said, was very general in the ancient world; a miraculous interpretation could therefore be placed upon happenings for which the modern man would have no difficulty in discovering a natural cause. Luke was a child of his time; even in the we-sections, Von Harnack insists, where the work of an eyewitness is universally recognized, a supernaturalistic interpretation is placed upon natural events—as, for example, when Paul excites the wonder of his companions by shaking off into the fire a viper that was no doubt perfectly harmless. Why, then, should the presence of the supernatural in the rest of the book be used to refute the hypothesis of the Lucan authorship, if it is not so used in the we-sections?[14]