The Origin of Paul's Religion

by J. Gresham Machen

Certainly, at any rate, whatever solution may be found for the intricate problem of the Pauline use of the term "flesh," the Pauline pessimism with regard to human nature is totally different from the dualistic pessimism of the Hellenistic age. It is different because it does not make evil reside in matter as such. But it is different also in a far more fundamental way. It is different in its ethical character. The Hellenistic age was conscious of the need of salvation; and salvation, it was recognized, must come from outside of man. But this consciousness of need was not always, and not clearly, connected with questions of right and wrong. The Hellenistic age was conscious of inadequacy, of slavery to fate, of the futility of human life as it is actually lived upon the earth. Here and there, no doubt, there was also a recognition of existing moral evil, and a longing for a better life. But such longings were almost submerged amidst longings of a non-ethical kind. The mysteries were cherished for the most part not because they offered goodness but because they offered happiness.

In Paul, on the other hand, the consciousness of human inadequacy is essentially a consciousness of sin. And redemption is desired because it satisfies the hunger and thirst after righteousness. At this point the contrast with the Hellenistic mystery religions is profound. The religion of Paul is like the mystery religions in that it is a religion of redemption. But there the similarity ceases. There is certainly no such similarity in the conception of that from which men are to be redeemed as would raise any presumption of dependence in the presentation of the means of redemption. And it is dependence in the presentation of the means of redemption which alone would serve to explain the origin of the religion of Paul. It is unwarranted to argue that because Paul agrees with the mystery religions in a longing for redemption therefore he must have derived from the mystery religions his method of satisfying the longing—namely his conception of the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. For even in the longing for redemption—to say nothing of the way of satisfying the longing—Paul was totally different from the mysteries. The longing which was aroused in the devotees of the mysteries was a longing for a happier immortality, a freedom from the pressure of fate; the longing which Paul sought to arouse in those for whom he labored was a longing for righteousness and for acceptance by the righteous God.

This difference is intimately connected with a highly significant fact—the presence in Paul of a "forensic" view of salvation. Salvation, according to Paul, is not only salvation from the power of sin; it is also salvation from the guilt of sin. Not only regeneration is needed, if a man is to be saved, but also justification. At this point, there is apparently in the mystery religions no parallel worthy of the name. At least there is none if Reitzenstein's attempt to exhibit a parallel[214] is at all adequate; for Reitzenstein has succeeded only in setting in clearer light the enormous difference at this point between Paul and his pagan environment. The word "justify" appears, indeed, in the Hermetic corpus (xiii. 9), but as Reitzenstein himself observes, it means not "declare righteous" but "make righteous." A parallel with Paul can be set up, therefore, only if "justify" in Paul also means "make righteous." Reitzenstein actually finds such a meaning in Rom. vi. 7, and in Rom. viii. 30. But the expedient is desperate in the extreme. It will probably be unnecessary to review again the absolutely overwhelming evidence by which the word "justify" in the Pauline Epistles is shown to mean not "make righteous" but "declare righteous." Without the slightest question Paul did maintain a forensic view of salvation. The believer, according to Paul, is in himself guilty in the sight of God. But he is given a sentence of acquittal, he is "justified," because Christ has borne on the cross the curse of the Law which rightly rested upon those whom Christ died to save.

The presence of this forensic element in the teaching of Paul is universally or generally recognized; and it is usually admitted to be not Greek but Jewish. But there is a tendency among recent scholars to minimize its importance. According to Wrede, the forensic conception of salvation, the complex of ideas centering around justification apart from the works of the Law, was merely a weapon forged by Paul in the exigencies of controversy.[215] Against the Judaizing contention for the continued validity of the Law Paul developed the doctrine that the penalty imposed by the Law upon sin was borne by Christ, so that for the believer the bondage of the Law is over. But, Wrede believes, this whole conception was of minor importance in Paul's own life; it was merely necessary in order that he might refute the Judaizers and so continue his free Gentile mission. A somewhat similar view is advocated by Bousset; Bousset believes, at least, that the forensic conception of salvation occupies a subordinate place in the thought and life of Paul.

But there could be no greater mistake. The doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law appears indeed in the Epistle to the Galatians as a weapon against the Judaizers. But why was Paul opposed to the Judaizers in the first place? Certainly it was not merely because the Judaizing demand that Gentile Christians should be circumcised and keep the Law would interfere in a practical way with the Gentile mission. Paul was not like some modern leaders of the Church, who are interested in mere bigness; he was not interested in the extension of the Church if such extension involved the sacrifice of principle. Nothing could be more utterly unhistorical than the representation of Paul as a practical missionary, developing the doctrine of justification by faith in order to get rid of a doctrine of the Law which would be a hindrance in the way of his Gentile mission. Such a representation reverses the real state of the case. The real reason why Paul was devoted to the doctrine of justification by faith was not that it made possible the Gentile mission, but rather that it was true. Paul was not devoted to the doctrine of justification by faith because of the Gentile mission; he was devoted to the Gentile mission because of the doctrine of justification by faith. And he was opposed to the Judaizers, not merely because they constituted a hindrance in the way of the Gentile work, but because they made the cross of Christ of none effect. "If righteousness is through the law, then Christ died in vain" (Gal. ii. 21). These words are at the very heart of Paul's life; for they involve the Pauline doctrine of the grace of God.

There could be no greater error, therefore, than that of representing the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith as a mere afterthought, as a mere weapon in controversy. Paul was interested in salvation from the guilt of sin no whit less than in salvation from the power of sin, in justification no whit less than in the "new creation." Indeed, it is a great mistake to separate the two sides of his message. There lies the root error of the customary modern formula for explaining the origin of the Pauline theology. According to that formula, the forensic element in Paul's doctrine of salvation, which centers in justification, was derived from Judaism, and the vital or essential element which centers in the new creation was derived from paganism. In reality, the two elements are inextricably intertwined. The sense of guilt was always central in the longing for salvation which Paul desired to induce in his hearers, and imparted to that longing an ethical quality which was totally lacking in the mystery religions. And salvation in the Pauline churches consisted not merely in the assurance of a blessed immortality, not merely in the assurance of a present freedom from the bondage of fate, not merely even in the possession of a new power of holy living, but also, and everywhere, in the consciousness that the guilt of sin had been removed by the cross of Christ.

There is no affinity, therefore, between the Pauline doctrine of salvation and that which is found in the mystery religions. The terminology is strikingly different, and the difference is even greater in the underlying ideas. Paulinism is like the mystery religions in being a religion of redemption, but within the great category of redemptive religions there could be no greater contrast.

This conclusion might be overthrown if certain recent contentions should prove to be correct with regard to the second of the elements in Paulinism which are being derived from pagan religion. This second element is found in the Pauline doctrine of the sacraments. In the teaching of Paul about baptism and the Lord's Supper, we are told, there is clearly to be observed the influence of the mystery religions.

This contention depends partly upon the supposed nature of these particular sacraments and partly upon the mere fact of the presence of sacraments in the religion of Paul.

With regard to the nature of these particular sacraments there might seem at first sight to be a parallel with the mystery religions. The mysteries usually had connected with them ablutions of one kind or another and some sort of partaking of sacred food. But it is singularly difficult to determine the meaning of these practices. The various ablutions which preceded the celebration of the mysteries may have been often nothing more than symbols of cleansing; and such symbolism is so natural that it might appear independently at many places. It appears, for example, highly developed among the Jews; and in the baptism of John the Baptist it assumes a form far more closely akin to Christian baptism than in the washings which were connected with the pagan mysteries. The evidence for a sacramental significance of the ablutions in the mysteries, despite confident assertions on the part of some modern writers, is really very slight. Most interesting, perhaps, of all the passages which have been cited is that which appears in Pap. Par. 47, a papyrus letter written in the second century before Christ.[216] This passage may be translated as follows: "For you are untruthful about all things and the gods who are with you likewise, because they have cast you into great matter and we are not able to die, and if you see that we are going to be saved, then let us be baptized." It is possible to understand the death that is referred to as the mystical death which would be attained in the mysteries, and to connect the baptism with that death and with the consequent salvation. There would thus be a parallel, external at least, with the sixth chapter of Romans, where Paul connects baptism with the death and resurrection of Christ. But the papyrus passage is hopelessly obscure, and is capable of very different interpretations. Moulton and Milligan, for example, take the verb "to be baptized," in a purely figurative sense, as meaning simply "to be overwhelmed with calamities."[217] According to this interpretation the reference to the mysteries disappears altogether. At any rate, the passage, if it does refer to the mysteries, is altogether isolated. And in view of its extreme obscurity it should not be made the basis of far-reaching conclusions. What is now being maintained is not that the washings which were connected with the mysteries were never sacramental. It is incautious to make such sweeping negative assertions. But so far as the pre-Pauline period is concerned, the evidence which has been adduced is, to say the least, exceedingly scanty. It has by no means been proved that in the pre-Pauline mysteries, "baptism" was connected closely with the new birth.[218]