The Origin of Paul's Religion

by J. Gresham Machen

Attention has already been called to the difficulties which beset this interposition of an extra link between Paul and the Jerusalem Church. It has been shown that what Paul "received" he received not from the churches at Antioch and Tarsus but from the original disciples at Jerusalem. But in addition to the general considerations which connect the whole of Paulinism with the Jerusalem tradition about Jesus, there are certain special indications of a Jerusalem origin of the title "Lord."

One such indication may be found, perhaps, in Gal. i. 19. When, in connection with a visit to Jerusalem which occurred three years after the conversion, Paul speaks of "James the brother of the Lord," the natural inference is that "the brother of the Lord" was a designation which was applied to James in Jerusalem; and if so, then the title "Lord" was current in the Jerusalem Church.[224] Of course, the inference is not absolutely certain; Paul might have designated James as "the brother of the Lord" because that was the designation of James in the Galatian Churches and the designation which Paul himself commonly used, even if it was not current in Jerusalem. But the natural impression which the passage will always make upon an unsophisticated reader is that Paul is using a terminology which was already fixed among James' associates at the time and place to which the narrative refers. It should be observed that in speaking of Peter, Paul actually uses the Aramaic form and not the Greek form of the name. The indications are that with regard to the leaders of the Jerusalem Church Paul is accustomed generally to follow the Jerusalem usage. And the evidence of such a passage as Gal. i. 18, 19, where Jerusalem conditions are mentioned, is doubly strong. The use in this passage of the title "brother of the Lord" would indeed not be absolutely decisive if it stood alone. But taken in connection with the other evidence, it does point strongly to the prevalence in the early Jerusalem Church of the title "Lord" as applied to Jesus.

More stress is usually laid upon the occurrence of "Maranatha" in 1 Cor. xvi. 22. "Maranatha" is Aramaic, and it means "Our Lord, come!" Why was the Aramaic word "Our Lord" included, as a designation of Jesus, in a Greek letter? The natural supposition is that it had been hallowed by its use in the Aramaic-speaking church at Jerusalem. Accordingly it pushes the use of the title "Lord" back to the primitive Christian community; the title cannot, therefore, be regarded as a product of the Hellenistic churches in Antioch and Tarsus.

This argument has been met in various ways. According to Böhlig, the passage does attest the application of the Aramaic title "Lord" to Jesus, but that application, Böhlig believes, was made not in Palestine but in Syria, not in Jerusalem but in Antioch. Syria, indeed, with Cilicia, was, Böhlig insists, the special home of the designation "Lord" as applied to the gods; the word "Baal," the common Semitic title of the Syrian gods, means "Lord." And Böhlig also points to the appearance of the title Mar along with Baal as a title of divinity.[225]

But why was the Semitic title retained in a Greek letter? In answer to this question the bilingual condition of Syria may be appealed to. But what particular sanctity could be attached to the Semitic usage of Syria; why should Paul follow that usage in writing to a church that was situated, not in the East, but in Greece proper? If, on the other hand, the title "Mar" had been hallowed by the use of the original disciples of Jesus, then the retention of the original word without translation is perfectly natural.

Bousset now proposes another hypothesis.[226] The phrase "Maranatha," he says, probably had nothing to do with Jesus; it constitutes merely a formula of cursing like the "anathema" which immediately precedes in 1 Cor. xvi. 22; the Maran (or Marana) refers not to Jesus, but to God; the formula means, "Our Lord (God) shall come and judge." But Bousset adduces no real evidence in support of his explanation. No such formula of cursing seems to have been found in Semitic sources. And why should Paul introduce such a Semitic curse in writing to Corinth? The latest hypothesis of Bousset is certainly a desperate expedient.

"Marana" in 1 Cor. xvi. 22, therefore, certainly refers to Jesus, and the strong presumption is that it was derived from Palestine. The passage constitutes a real testimony to the use of the title "Lord" as a designation of Jesus in the Palestinian Church.

Possibly, moreover, this passage may also serve to fix the original Aramaic form of the title. Bousset and certain other scholars have been inclined to detect a linguistic difficulty in the way of attributing the title "Lord" to the Aramaic-speaking Church. The absolute "Mara," it is said, does not seem to have been current in Aramaic; only "Mari" ("my Lord") and "Maran" ("our Lord") seem to have been commonly used. But it is just in the absolute form, "the Lord," that the title appears most frequently in the Greek New Testament. Therefore, it is concluded, this New Testament Greek usage cannot go back to the usage of the Aramaic-speaking Church. It will perhaps be unnecessary to enter upon the linguistic side of this argument. Various possibilities might be suggested for examination to the students of Aramaic—among others, the possibility that "Mari," "Maran," had come to be used absolutely, like "Rabbi," "Rabban," the original meaning of the possessive suffix having been obscured.[227] But in general it can probably be said that if persons of Aramaic speech had desired to designate Jesus, absolutely, as "Lord" or "the Lord," the language was presumably not so poor but that the essential idea could have been expressed. And it is the essential idea, not the word, which is really important. The important thing is that the attitude toward Jesus which is expressed by the Greek word "Kyrios," was, unless all indications fail, also the attitude of the Jerusalem Church.

But may not the Greek title itself have originated in Jerusalem? This possibility has been neglected in recent discussions of the subject. But it is worthy of the most careful consideration. It should be remembered that Palestine in the first century after Christ was a bilingual country.[228] No doubt Aramaic was in common use among the great body of the people, and no doubt it was the language of Jesus' teaching. But Greek was also in use, and it is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that even Jesus spoke Greek when occasion demanded. At any rate, the early Jerusalem Church included a large body of Greek-speaking persons; the "Hellenists" are mentioned in Acts vi. 1 in a way to which high historical importance is usually attributed. It is altogether probable, therefore, that the terminology current in the Jerusalem Church from the very beginning, or almost from the very beginning, was Greek as well as Aramaic. From this Greek-speaking part of the Church the original apostles could hardly have held themselves aloof. Total ignorance of Greek on the part of Galileans is improbable in view of what is known in general about linguistic conditions in Palestine; and in the capital, with its foreign connections, and its hosts of Hellenists, the opportunity for the use of Greek would be enormously increased. It is altogether improbable, therefore, that the Greek terminology of the Hellenists resident in Jerusalem was formed without the approval of the original disciples of Jesus. When the apostle Paul, therefore, assumes everywhere that the term "Lord" as applied to Jesus was no peculiarity of his own, but was familiar to all his readers, the phenomenon can be best explained if not only the sense of the title, but also its Greek form, was due to the mother Church. In other words, the transition from Aramaic to Greek, as the language of the disciples of Jesus, did not occur at Antioch or Tarsus, as Bousset seems to think. In all probability it occurred at Jerusalem, and occurred under the supervision of the immediate friends of Jesus. It could not possibly, therefore, have involved a transformation of the original faith.

But the linguistic considerations just adduced are only supplementary. Even if the use of Greek in Jerusalem was less important than has here been suggested, the state of the case is not essentially altered. Every attempt at separating the religion of Paul sharply from the religion of the Jerusalem Church has resulted in failure. Whatever may have been the linguistic facts, the divine Lord of the Epistles was also the Lord of those who had been intimate friends of Jesus of Nazareth.