The Origin of Paul's Religion

by J. Gresham Machen

Opinions differ, moreover, as to the importance of the Hermetic type of thought in the life of the ancient world. Reitzenstein exalts its importance; he believes that back of the Hermetic writings there lies a living religion, and that this Hermetic type of religion was characteristic of the Hellenistic age. At this point Cumont and others are in sharp disagreement; Cumont believes that in the West Hermetism had nothing more than a literary existence and did not produce a Hermetic sect, and that in general Reitzenstein has greatly exaggerated the Hermetic influence.[166] With regard to this controversy, it can at least be said that Reitzenstein has failed to prove his point.

Detailed exposition of the Hermetic writings will here be impossible. A number of recent investigators have covered the field with some thoroughness. Unfortunately a complete modern critical edition of the Hermetic corpus is still lacking; the student is obliged to have recourse to the edition of Parthey (1854),[167] which is not complete and does not quite measure up to modern standards. Reitzenstein has included in his "Poimandres" (1904) a critical edition of Tractates I, XIII, XVI, XVII, XVIII. There has been no collection, in the original languages, of all the Hermetic writings (including those outside of the corpus), though Ménard has provided a French translation,[168] and Mead an English translation with elaborate introduction and notes.[169] The work of Mead, which is published by the Theosophical Publishing Society, is not usually regarded as quite satisfactory. But the translation at least will be found exceedingly useful. The systematic exposition of the thought of the Hermetic writings by J. Kroll is clear and instructive;[170] and Heinrici, who differs from Kroll in treating the individual writings separately, has also made a valuable contribution to the subject.[171]

In the Hermetic tractates I and XIII, upon which Reitzenstein lays the chief emphasis, there is presented a notion of the transformation of the one who receives divine revelation. The transformation, as in the Hermetic writings generally, is for the most part independent of ceremonies or sacraments. An experience which in the mysteries is connected with an initiation involving an appeal to the senses here seems to have been spiritualized under the influence of philosophy; regeneration comes not through a mystic drama or the like but through an inner experience. Such at least is a common modern interpretation of the genesis of the Hermetic doctrine. At any rate, it seems to be impossible to reduce that doctrine to anything like a consistent logical scheme. Reitzenstein has tried to bring order out of chaos by distinguishing in the first tractate two originally distinct views as to the origin of the world and of man, but his analysis has not won general acceptance. It must probably be admitted, however, that the Hermetic literature has received elements from various sources and has not succeeded in combining them in any consistent way.

The student who will first read Tractates I and XIII for himself will probably be surprised when he is told (for example by Reitzenstein) that here is to be found the spiritual atmosphere from which Paulinism came. For there could be no sharper contrast than that between the fantastic speculations of the Poimandres and the historical gospel of Paul. Both the Poimandres and Paul have some notion of a transformation that a man experiences through a divine revelation. But the transformation, according to Paul, comes through an account of what had happened but a few years before. Nothing could possibly be more utterly foreign to Hermes. On the other hand, the result of the transformation in Hermes is deification. "This," says Hermes (Tractate I, 26), "is the good end to those who have received knowledge, to be deified."[172] Paul could never have used such language. For, according to Paul, the relation between the believer and the Christ who has transformed him is a personal relation of love. The "Christ-mysticism" of Paul is never pantheistic. It is indeed supernatural; it is not produced by any mere influence brought to bear upon the old life. But the result, far from being apotheosis, is personal communion of a man with his God.

In connection with Hermes Trismegistus may be mentioned the so-called Oracula Chaldaica, which apparently sprang from the same general type of thought.[173] These Oracula Chaldaica, according to W. Kroll, constitute a document of heathen gnosis, which was produced about 200 A.D. Although Kroll believes that there is here no Christian influence, and that Jewish influence touches not the center but only the circumference, yet for the reasons already noticed it would be precarious to use a document of 200 A.D. in reconstructing pre-Pauline paganism.

A very important source of information about the Greco-oriental religion of the Hellenistic age is found by scholars like Dieterich and Reitzenstein in the so-called "magical" papyri. Among the many interesting papyrus documents which have recently been discovered in Egypt are some that contain formulas intended to be used in incantations. At first sight these formulas look like hopeless nonsense; it may perhaps even be said that they are intended to be nonsense. That is, the effect is sought, not from any logical understanding of the formulas either on the part of those who use them or on the part of the higher powers upon whom they are to be used, but simply and solely from the mechanical effect of certain combinations of sounds. Thus the magical papyri include not only divine names in foreign languages (the ancient and original name of a god being regarded as exerting a coercive effect upon that god), but also many meaningless rows of letters which do not form words at all. But according to Dieterich and Reitzenstein and others, these papyri, nonsensical as they are in their completed form, often embody materials which belong not to magic but to religion; in particular, they make use, for a magical purpose, of what was originally intended to be used in a living religious cult. Indeed the distinction between magic and religion is often difficult to draw. In religion there is an element of interest, on the part of the worshiper, in the higher powers as such, some idea of propitiating them, of winning their favor; whereas in magic the higher powers are made use of as though they were mere machines through the use of incantations and spells. But when this distinction is applied to the ancient mystery religions, sometimes these religions seem to be little more than magic, so external and mechanical is the way in which the initiation is supposed to work. It is not surprising, therefore, if the composers of magical formulas turned especially, in seeking their materials, to the mystery cults; for they were drawn in that direction by a certain affinity both of purpose and of method. At any rate, whatever may be the explanation, the existing magical papyri, according to Dieterich and others, do contain important elements derived from the oriental religious cults; it is only necessary, Dieterich maintains, to subtract the obviously later elements—the nonsensical rows of letters and the like—in order to obtain important sources of information about the religious life of the Hellenistic age.

This method has been applied by Dieterich especially to a Paris magical papyrus, with the result that the underlying religious document is found to be nothing less than a liturgy of the religion of Mithras.[174] Dieterich's conclusions have not escaped unchallenged; the connection of the document with Mithraism has been denied, for example, by Cumont.[175] Of course, even if the document be not really a "Mithras liturgy," it may still be of great value in the reconstruction of Hellenistic gnosis. With regard to date, however, it is not any more favorably placed than the documents which have just been considered. The papyrus manuscript in which the "liturgy" is contained was written at the beginning of the fourth century after Christ; and the composition of the "liturgy" itself cannot be fixed definitely at any very much earlier date.[176] Dieterich supposes that the beginning was made in the second century, and that there were successive additions afterward. At any rate, then, not only the papyrus manuscript, but also the liturgy which it is thought to contain, was produced long after the time of Paul. Like the Hermetic writings, moreover, Dieterich's Mithras liturgy presents a conception of union with divinity which is really altogether unlike the Pauline gospel.

But information about pre-Christian paganism is being sought not only in ostensibly pagan sources; it is also being sought in the Gnosticism which appears in connection with the Christian Church. Gnosticism used to be regarded as a "heresy," a perversion of Christian belief. Now, on the contrary, it is being regarded as essentially non-Christian, as a manifestation of Greco-oriental religion which was brought into only very loose connection with Christianity; the great Gnostic systems of the second century, it is said, when they are stripped of a few comparatively unimportant Christian elements are found to represent not a development from Christianity but rather the spiritual atmosphere from which Christianity itself sprang.

If this view of the case be correct, it is at least significant that pagan teachers of the second century (the Gnostics) should have been so ready to adopt Christian elements and so anxious to give their systems a Christian appearance. Why should a similar procedure be denied in the case, for example, of Hermes Trismegistus? If second-century paganism, without at all modifying its essential character, could sometimes actually adopt the name of Christ, why should it be thought incredible that the compiler of the Hermetic literature, who did not go quite so far, should yet have permitted Christian elements to creep into his syncretistic work? Why should similarity of language between Hermes and Paul, supposing that it exists, be regarded as proving dependence of Paul upon a type of paganism like that of Hermes, rather than dependence of Hermes upon Paul?

But the use of Gnosticism as a witness to pre-Christian paganism is faced with obvious difficulties. Gnosticism has admittedly been influenced by Christianity. Who can say, then, exactly how far the Christian influence extends? Who can say that any element in Gnosticism, found also in the New Testament, but not clearly contained in pagan sources, is derived from paganism rather than from Christianity? Yet it is just exactly such procedure which is advocated by Reitzenstein and others.