Заключение. «Евангелие» св. Апостола Павла в его независимости по происхождению и существу

The meaning of the apostolic gospel is historical and dogmatic - a critical assessment “in religious-historical” science of “Pavlov’s Gospel” in terms of its originality and in relation to the then dominant religious-philosophical elements. – The independence of the Apostle in essence from rabbinic and Hellenistic Judaism and from Hellenism. – The source of Paul’s gospel is in the revelation of Christ, the solidarity and equality in it of all the Apostles and the one fundamental principle is in the Gospel of Christ, as the teaching of the incarnate Son and the work of the divine Redeemer. I proclaim to you, brethren, that the Gospel, which I preached is not human, for I also received it and learned it not from man, but through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Christ the Savior lived on earth and acted for the benefit of people. It is clear that by their very purpose, these redemptive acquisitions were to become the property of humanity, and for this the latter needed the most accurate knowledge of the Gospel events in order to correctly understand them and extract all the beneficial energy. Historically, Christian redemption was affirmed through the apostolic gospel, which even now serves as the primary source of gospel expositions for everyone, providing materials for comprehending and evaluating Christianity according to its inner essence and historical dignity. Then it turns out that - in itself - the question of the person of Jesus Christ and his Gospel is and remains the darkest until the gospel teaching of the Apostles is revealed. But among them St. Paul is the most famous figure of antiquity and illuminates his era more clearly than others. First of all, he especially worked on Christian preaching among the pagans and ensured its worldwide domination, at least with the participation and agreement of others. Along with this, it is equally certain that his messages are the oldest Christian documents - and if they were not authentic, we would have lost the most important support for understanding the personality and activity of the Lord - the Redeemer, for we have His Gospel strictly in the understanding and commentary of St. Pavel. From here it necessarily follows that the further existence and theoretical understanding of Christianity are decisively determined by this Apostle, as a practical missionary and theological writer. 1737 Here the fundamental question naturally arises: to what extent is Paul’s interpretation true in content and does it completely objectively reflect the true Gospel of Christ? But the second is actually only extracted from the first and does not yet exist as an independent quantity for comparison. Because of this, the historical foundations of Christianity must be determined by a critical examination of Paul’s gospel according to its origin and essence, according to historical news of the Christian ministry of this Apostle. Of him we know that he was a great and productive organizer of the Christian Church. Having transformed from her malicious enemy into an ardent confessor, he immediately moved forward in the field of living Christian mission. Through his influence, Christianity is decisively transferred from the narrow Palestinian borders to the wide expanse of the world and is firmly strengthened there as a universal teaching, alien to national-Jewish adaptation. This was the greatest deed, parallel to the feat of the Savior himself. Jesus Christ gave a new revelation, but hitherto it was applied within the same narrow framework and did not receive proper expression. Such a state threatened that the Gospel of Christ would never achieve its adequate fulfillment and, locking itself in old schemes, would turn out to be simply some kind of renewal of them, being only reformed Judaism. St. Paul, dividing Christianity from the national soil, thereby reveals its universal nature and guarantees its predominance everywhere. This was not just an actual success, but also a huge ideological triumph of extraordinary importance. The very question of the redemption of all mankind was due to Christ, and here we find a new fundamental statement and a virtually guaranteed solution. Here there was a second step, equal in strength to the first, because it was after this that all further flow began unhindered. On this side St. Paul was the creator and organizer of Christianity as a world religion, and only through him the Gospel of Christ was preserved in the apostolic age and then became an element that transforms all history. In this regard, the Hellenic evangelist was the second founder of Christianity and the actual originator of the Christian Church, as an ideological savior and practical implementer of the universalism of Christ, which he freed from Jewish shackles to a truly spiritual life. And this merit is all the higher because the fact in question, if not preceded, was accompanied by theoretical justification and therefore acquired fundamental importance. True, the apostolic epistles are sometimes considered to be random private notes, where the author, responding to various perplexities ad hoc, gives only immediate explanations that do not have general dogmatic importance. However, such a view is very extreme, belittling and smoothing out the purely literary qualities of the apostolic documents, in which others see the genre more dialectical than epistolary, which is why they equate them with midrash and call them theological treatises in the form of letters, where technical philosophical terminology is sometimes seen. It is true that these are not specifically dogmatic works, but in them ideological Christian principles are adaptively revealed and theoretically protected - in accordance with the very factual position of the Apostle. He was more a prophet and missionary than a rational theologian, and wrote for the practical needs of his ministry. From here, again, the only thing that follows is that St. Paul was not a theoretical taxonomist, and he cannot be tendentiously contrasted, as a theoretical dogmatist, with the Lord Christ, Who is exaggeratedly portrayed as an apocalyptic. The greatness of the evangelist lies not in theological speculation, but in the fact that, being a living bearer of Christian experience and a Christolarist, he acted not as a learned author, but as an ardent herald of Christianity. Nevertheless, it is indisputable that the Apostle is a theologian in our sense, for he always has before him a certain sum of central ideas and rationally argues for them, without adhering to a systematic form. Even if he has few firmly formulated concepts here, this shows that theological-Christian terminology was then gradually forged and developed historically. And it is quite certain that on this point a great participation belonged to the Hellenic missionary, about whom they even say that - in relation to the theory of Christianity - he was “the first of the Apostles to understand the person and work of Jesus.” St. Paul, of course, used the LXX, which translation was to a certain extent the mother of the New Testament and significantly helped missionary propaganda, but we must not forget that now a different content was put into the previous terms - and they received a specifically Christian meaning. This observation is also true for pagan religious vocabulary. The Apostle did not avoid the latter, accepting it in the interests of greatest intelligibility for listeners and readers, but he carefully eliminated all words of a strictly idolatrous nature. Here we find a deliberate selection of terminology for the sake of the most precise verbal expression of Christian truths. In view of this, St. Paul is rightly called the creator of the Christian language, at least not the final one. As a result, it turns out that both practically and theoretically the Hellenic evangelist was the engine of Christianity in comparison with the state he found. This means that he brought something additional to the cash that was not there before. This irresistibly asserts that his Gospel was essentially new due to the special conditions of its origin. And this is directly indicated by the exclusivity of the apostolic life. History makes Saul in Jerusalem an ardent zealot of Judaism and a bitter persecutor of the Christian faith. It is possible that this fantastic soul was not alien to internal struggles, and yet the Christian revolution was not inevitably caused by them. Polemical clashes with Christian confessors were also capable of exacerbating internal languor - and some think that the young Pharisee simply did not master the intricate argumentation of chaotic midrash and could not withstand the animated pressure of Christian apology, which shook the very foundation of previous beliefs. All the foundations collapsed all the more rapidly because the mental support for them was extremely unsteady. It is usually assumed that Saul was a sick person - and the disputes here concern only the most particular qualifications, if in principle this is accepted for Christ the Savior. The question is not about random phenomena of the kind, 1738 such as, for example, malaria, which the Apostle learns from attention to the unhealthy climate of the city of Tarsus (now Tersous), although it is denied on the first trip. Of course, there are constitutive factors in the psycho-physical nature of the Apostle, and here many firmly accept that he suffered from epilepsy with nervous excitement of visionary creativity. Compared to the “enlightenment” of Christians of the 2nd century, their predecessors were dreamers, and among them Paul was distinguished by an abnormal ecstatic tension that affected soul and body. This moment, which determined visionary visions during epileptic seizures, was reflected in the final crisis of conversion, which would be a psycho-pathological act of ecstatic contemplation, or hallucination, from where the irrational or pathological element then penetrates into the Christian writings of the Apostle. It is hardly necessary to add that here everything revolves in the sphere of the Jewish beliefs that Saul had, and the subjective change was accompanied only by their unusual direction and adaptation. This is not a change in the active force itself, which now receives only the original application. In essence, the conversion actually gave a new point of view in the original view. The mental mood and religious-dogmatic content are completely preserved. So in Christianity, Paul at first adheres to Jewish hopes, customs and methods, while establishing himself more on nomistic soil. Modifications arise later under the influence of experience. Even in Judaism, he worked as a missionary among the pagans, and his philanthropic desire to be the first in messianic times attracted him with particular passion to this field. But Saul previously suffered a downfall here because of nationalistic nomism and therefore now rejects the latter in order to ensure the best success for himself in the Hellenic world. Contrary to the prevailing Jewish views, the law is eliminated for the sake of unhindered Christian missionary work among the pagans and is forever perverted according to its dignity for later Christian generations. The result is religious universalism. It is not just a typical difference of Paulinism - and it is fair to state that it was a pure subjective creation of the apostolic. And if the evangelist separated Christianity from the barren Jewish soil and made it universal from the national, then everything happened not because of the objective dictates of Christ’s feat, but according to personal random needs and was determined precisely by them. This subjective motivation of peacocking according to the conditions of origin directly excluded objective verification, which would be mandatory for everyone and independent of each particular individual. A historical basis was not only not required, but was directly excluded by the very nature of Paulinian universalism, since the latter was entirely rooted in the recesses of the apostolic spirit. Transferring historical facts to another environment would lead him to inevitable death, depriving him of his natural basis and driving him to unrelated factors. The Apostle Paul had no internal motivation for objectively historical argumentation of his doctrine, which was and remained completely subjective. Therefore, the evangelist is not at all interested in the life of the Lord Savior and proudly rejects acquaintance with it, operating with the most general data about death and resurrection and considering everything that follows to be random transitional stages. Historical echoes are completely insignificant and are not allowed on principle. The Pauline Christ is simply some kind of supernatural diagram, least of all reminiscent of a living historical figure. Apparently, to Jesus, known only by one name, Paul theoretically adapted the apocalyptic image of the Messiah, which he had earlier and independently of the historical personality of the Redeemer. It is even possible that this process was not intentional, when the vision before Damascus, caused by nervous soreness, was resolved by the ecstatic hallucination of a celestial light being. Paul, having become a Christian, was not at all bound by new material and had at his disposal the usual previous reserves, which were not always successfully applied to new aspirations and demands. Thus, he was the first strictly Christian dogmatist, but he achieved this in a subtle way - with a rabbinical, lifeless interpretation of the Old Testament. In all other respects, the Apostle operates with the accepted categories of vicarious propitiation of sin, applying them to the Messiah and accordingly expanding the effect of Christ’s atonement, which is depicted as universal. Paul now appears before us as truly original, but not for Judaism, which he only transformed, but for the true Gospel of Christ, for the latter is reflected in him almost by one name. The teaching of the Apostle is completely different from that of the Lord Savior, whom he describes in a completely new light, as the gracious Redeemer of mankind. Whether Saul saw Christ during his lifetime and therefore recognized him in revelation before Damascus, or not, it is still argued that in the first case, the objective gospel history was not his formative content, which developed through the independent personal creativity of the evangelist as a heavenly Christology. There was no immediate cause for the connection, and Paul's Gospel turns out to be new in comparison with Christ's. This fact can cause different assessments, and some here praise, others blame the Apostle. Above all, he was the engine of Christian progress and the de facto founder of Christian universalism. Hardly anyone would dare to dispute such great services to Christian civilization - and this is why all sorts of praises addressed to St. Pavel. However, the noted advantages were his own creations and in this personal dignity can be considered the best, but still they were not objectively Christ’s and should not have been given out in such a meaning. Here a dilemma is inevitably formulated, very devastating for the Hellenic evangelist: either his teaching exactly coincided with Christ’s, and then there will be nothing progressively original in it; or the Apostle gives something completely new and thereby deviates from Christ’s norm, replacing it with his own. But we are talking about Paulinistic improvements in the course of Christian growth, and therefore it is the second possibility with all its consequences that comes into its own. The first of these will be that the apostolic gospel was not at all Christ’s by its very nature and should not claim this title. It is further clear that, at any glance, it had an exclusively personal character and corresponding content. Let it be that Paul made a universal religion out of the faith of a sect and converted the early Christian community into a universal church: - everything here is achieved by processing inherited Jewish speculation in the interests of mission among the pagans. Let it be a mistake that this Apostle has nothing systematic, but he, while remaining an evangelist par excellence, was a great Christian thinker - a theologian who worked hard not only to spread Christianity, but also to accurately formulate theological views in a coherent, consistent and harmonious system. In this regard, the limitation is again necessary that this superiority is due to rabbinic exegetical technique, in which one cannot expect true renewal, since here Paul yielded to Gamalil, conducting his argument in such a way that sometimes (for example, in Rom. IV) the laws of logic cannot even be applied to it. Because of this, the true Gospel simply dissolves and disappears in the artificial scholasticism of refined constructions and is complicated by side elements. Henceforth, living preaching is replaced by abstract dogma, the invigorating morality of revival is eliminated by a resonating metronome. And if the faith of the Church is Paul’s faith, then it means that for historical Christianity the founder was not the Lord the Savior, but Paul, for he significantly transformed the traditional messianism of Christ and directly ignored its bearers in the “previous Apostles.” Here the historical personality of the Redeemer is completely obscured in the consciousness of the Catholic Church, and this latter is the product of long-term compromises, retaining only Pharisaic intolerance, as a result of the antinomianism instilled in Paul. So far we have looked at the subject from a formal point of view. It is even more inevitable that the introduction of new elements should be accompanied by a clouding of the original source and a distortion of the original, which is changed by such an illegal composition. Then it is indisputable that Paul himself has departed and is leading others away from the historical Christ, departing from His principles and perverting His preaching on many points of difference. And if the question of choosing between the first and second is appropriate, then now it is not uncommon to hear a categorical decision: “away from Paul to Christ!” And this is quite understandable, since their entire unity rests only on common ground, and in fact the Hellenic evangelist accepted non-historical traditions about the Lord the Savior, he himself did not comprehend the meaning of the Gospel of Christ and led us all into this error. Here the relationship turns into a direct opposite, which forcibly refers to the adversariness of these historical figures. And we are told that Christ, without acting as a reformer at all, preached aggadic morality and simply wanted to free Jewish ethics from destructive attacks about a new religion; it was founded by Paul, but only because he was actually a pagan. The external merits of the system and the external successes of missionary work now fall as a heavy condemnation on the head of the evangelist. Not authorized by Christ, he will be a pseudo-apostle, and when he dares to preach “in the name of Christ” without any rights and without objective historical support, then it is natural for him to have all sorts of aberrations with a consciousness of a suspicious nature. In his system there are serious contradictions with deliberate distortions of borrowings. Of course, this will already be a morally shameful person who, for his own purposes, considers everything permissible, not excluding outright lies. This malicious absurdity, of course, is dictated by blind hatred, but logically such a view is natural in its very unnaturalness. As soon as the thesis of conscious forgery and meaningful forgery is accepted, we further obtain that their author suffered from severe moral defects and could not be the culprit of salvation for the world. It is not surprising if they say that Paul is not a successor, but an enemy and denier of Christ and had the most destructive influence in history. 1739 But such logic shakes itself with the absurdity of its inevitable conclusions. There is no need to prove that such random and all kinds of dark reasons cannot reasonably substantiate Christianity according to its historical existence and world-historical role. Given the above-mentioned premises, it is indisputable that Paulinism could only persist through a misunderstanding, when the “inventor of Christianity” found enough idiots obedient to him, and if people had been able to unravel this “Jewish Pascal,” then Christianity would have long ago disappeared without a trace. This is already a death sentence over all such theories, since in them the greatest historical phenomena are motivated simply by chance, subjectivism and deception. It is unnecessary to be indignant at this and it is enough to just state that everything here, of course, contradicts the cardinal law of causality and is therefore not scientific, as an irrational hypothesis. It follows that in the issue under consideration, all the importance is not in individuals. And since individual people, by their very insignificance, could produce a radical revolution, this indicates that before and besides them there were already ready-made foundations that were just waiting for an external push. A similar judgment is also possible with more serious views. They claim that although the new movement owes its origin to Christ, Paul caused such a deep revolution that everything that was previously was partly transformed significantly, and partly was completely swept away. Of course, the world course of religious and cultural civilization could not be changed by individual influence, and it is only conceivable as a side factor of independent evolution, taking place in history without human participation and fundamentally not requiring it. The world process is created by its own course, and Christianity, being capable of this, would have won without Paul. His personality turns out to be not at all necessary for the case, and his historical existence becomes doubtful. As for the messages, there is no compulsion to accept their authenticity - and it is sometimes categorically denied for all these documents. 1740 Paulinism takes the place of Paul, as a special movement that naturally grows out of previous development. Here all the personalities serve as a symbolization of different historical stages - and, for example, the Apostle Peter will also be a mythological type. By this we undertake to similarly represent the initial moment of the entire process. The latter refers to Christ, but - due to fundamental considerations - is no less scientifically a categorical denial of His historical existence. They boldly say that it is unlikely that the Evangelical Savior existed historically, since the individual influence on the course of Christianity is imperceptible, and it itself is quite satisfactorily explained without this figure. Christ Jesus was invented by Paulinism and, in this respect, later than it, being a mythological personification of the mythological origin of Christianity, the literary monuments of which are saturated with mythological elements. The interpretation of Paul's system from Jewish elements leads to the fact that the very factual foundations of Christianity as a historical phenomenon become doubtful, for the most important engines blur into a mythological mirage. But if, with the traditional view, genesis did not give everything, now there appears to be absolute ambiguity, because we are transported to the unlimited region of mythological creativity with unknown quantities. Obviously, serious science, which must first check the method of this design itself, cannot rest on such an impressive result. It rests on the idea of ​​the natural development of apostolic views from Judaism, and the deviation from the straight line of the previous course was caused by the crisis that occurred before Damascus. The latter turns out to be the starting point of a further process, which was resolved by a radical transformation of Judeo-rabbinic doctrines. Why do the teachings of the most conservative sentiments believe that the whole of Pavlov's theology was in communication. Here the importance of this event is greatly exaggerated, but it cannot be argued that the entire Christian life of the Apostle begins with it and is based in it. According to some theories, it was just a painful paroxysm of an epileptic - and the whole revolution belongs to purely psychiatric incidents. This extreme, first of all, indicates that criticism does not have more solid objective resources and, naturally, must motivate the actual anomaly with personal abnormalities. This conjecture itself is simply generated by prejudice, and is essentially unacceptable, since there is no scientific or medical basis for the idea of ​​Pavel’s epileptic illness. Obsessed with various sufferings, he reveals the intense activity of the most versatile practitioner, who combined an apocalyptic seer with a creative administrator. She was a multifaceted nature, and in her the marked soaring of a contemplator and theorist coexisted with the consistency of a tireless builder who acted with great strategic skill. There is not the slightest pathological perversion in all this. It goes without saying that visionary-ecstatic contemplations could develop only from ready-made psychic reserves, in the presence of which conversion served only as a symptom of the completion of the internal crisis. The center of gravity is already concentrated on the psychological preliminaries that have fostered an intellectual and spiritual tendency to break with the old in favor of the growing new outlook. It is impossible to deny these preparatory phases simply because Christian reality, which so irritated the fanatical Pharisee, influenced Paul too sharply and should have left a characteristic aftertaste in him. But from here it is still too far to the point where the turning point took place in the natural order of completed internal insight. Such a theory is untenable, and the role of all preliminaries must be limited to the extent of material that has received Christian application by a special decisive intervention, which is depicted as a supernatural and objective act. A whole world separates in Paul the Christian present from the Pharisaic past, and the latter was the least likely to direct and predispose to the former. The old did not have the necessary content for the new, and the latter cannot be logically deduced through internal transformation. Theories of psychological - dialectical genesis for conversion, in any case, are not sufficient, because they do not explain the emergence of Christian concepts that did not previously exist. But once they become an irresistible reality, we are obliged to allow a motivating real and objective act of varying merit, i.e. truly miraculous in its singularity. This is not a subjective process of visionary vision, but an actual miraculous event. Such is the actual compulsion - and it can be avoided only under the protection of the hypothesis that the whole Christian innovation consisted in a simple negation of Jewish doctrines, where the Apostle now mathematically replaced the pluses with minuses. And we have attempts to portray him as a type of antinomian, formed through renegadeism. This is a tendentious exaggeration. In comparison, it is no less true that “Paul was never an anti-Judaist” and in a certain sense always remained a Judeo-Christian. This is also guaranteed by his view of the Old Testament, which invariably approaches its completion in the New Testament economy. This was correct in a fundamental sense, for the redemptive work of Christ was systematically prepared and foreshadowed in the history of Israel, and in fact reflected the general mood of early Christianity about its close relationship to the law and the prophets. Under these conditions, the Damascus vision, being only an accidental episode of inner life, would not be accompanied by ideological enrichment. And we are told that the evangelist, having recoiled from Pharisaism, only Christianized his former Jewish catechism, from which comes his ideas about natural knowledge of God (Rom. I, 18 f. 28), faith and life in the spirit of mutual unity (Rom. XII). Everything original arose later for various private reasons. Here the conversion is too downplayed, turning into an unimportant personal incident, while in fact it was completely different if everything culminated in a fundamental rejection of the old Jewish confession. Paul became a Christian precisely because he could no longer remain a Jew - and his conversion was the moment of the birth of independent Christianity, which is not constrained by Jewish shackles. Because of this, the new religious truth will be alien to nationalistic isolation and will immediately be universally binding. The universal mission, in accordance with the universality of the grace of redemption, turns out to be not later and actually conditioned, but it was given in the very perception of revelation as a necessary and suitable saving light for all. 1741 But this was a real act, which must have a real support in its original author. Therefore, there is no doubt that Christ allowed and sanctioned the pagan mission and thereby proclaimed Christianity as a universal religion, abolishing the peculiarity of Judaism with such immense universalism. All these ideas are incomprehensible under the hypothesis of a subjective crisis - and this is undeniable due to its inevitable weakness for elucidating the Paulinistic doctrines themselves. In them, the most central place is occupied by the dogma of the universal redemption of mankind through the messianic feat of the Lord the Redeemer. The theoretical - factual prerequisite is sin, which was empirically naturally universal and so deep in human nature that it was absolutely beyond any human effort. For liberation, outside participation was necessary, and by the task itself it must be superhuman or entirely divine. The most important will be two points - the obligatory propitiatory mediation and the divinity of its performer. At this point, the usual judgment is that the Apostle used the biblical-Jewish ideas of vicarious reconciliation with God, revealed doctrinally and in various rituals, for example, bloody sacrifices, etc. Paul comments on the atonement according to the Jewish method in the sense of crediting the believers with the merits of Christ, and the whole difference is exhausted by the fact that the evangelist introduced features of humiliation into the finished pre-Christian material of the Messiah. The connection between fact and apostolic doctrine will be so distant that it cannot be said that Paul’s teaching about the atoning death of Christ was in all parts a necessary consequence of the preaching of the Savior Himself. All this is tendentious. After all, if Christianity and Judaism agreed essentially on this cardinal issue, then their actual break to the point of direct opposition would be incomprehensible. The presence of such convinces that external contact hides internal opposition. The very preliminaries of the sought redemption are very different for both. Judaism in the form of rabbinism, which has become dominant in it, is a religion of law, knowing only commandments and deeds and allowing only reward, and not faith. 1742 It is dominated by deserved payment, when Christianity preaches perception as a gift from above. For every Jewish confessor, the possibility of one’s own deliverance from sinfulness through the power of personal merit is fundamentally affirmed. The latter is rejected by Christianity not only for believers, but is also inapplicable to the Redeemer himself, since He did not appear as the deliverer of mankind as a righteous man possessing abundant deeds of moral deeds. In Judaism, everyone can have enough of them, at least for themselves, not to mention the merits of their fathers or descendants. The source of this for everyone is repentance, by which divine mercy covers all sins and untruths. Such “conversion” is available to everyone and is irresistible in its saving power. Man is now pure before God and does not need external help. Then he is again provided with equal convenience of personal correction. And the reason is that Judeo-rabbinic dogma does not accept the idea of ​​innate sinfulness and considers it its special pride that it opens up the perfect possibility of autonomous salvation to all people. Naturally, this Jewish teaching excludes the very idea of ​​mediation in the process of human justification, which simply requires divine condescension to repentance and does not allow any mediation. Of course, among the unstable Jewish doctrines, some echoes of such teachings have survived, but they are suppressed by the anti-Christian tendentiousness of both conservative orthodoxies and liberal reformers and intermediate groups in Judaism. And his slogan now proclaims the categorical formula that no mediator is required at all, for for a person there is no redemption except repentance, and with it everything becomes accessible to proper holiness. Here, any external emergency assistance will be groundless due to its actual uselessness. It is not surprising if messianic participation for these purposes of religious and moral redemption is considered unnecessary in Judaism. The idea of ​​a personal Messiah is not considered one of the main Jewish dogmas and is sometimes eliminated. It has long been said that the Messiah came in the person of Hezekiah, as Gilley II spoke of under the influence of disappointment in messianic hopes in an anti-Christian sense. Pharisaism was imbued with the dogmatic conviction that the Messiah, as the actual redeemer, was certainly superfluous. It is clear that this image does not have absolute importance in the Jewish consciousness and sometimes darkens almost to the point of disappearing. In the apocalyptic-apocryphal Jewish monuments it is extremely unstable in outline and is often completely absent, just as it is not clear in the non-canonical Old Testament books. If there are indications of the heavenly eminence of the Messiah, then along with this the type of temporary nature predominates; both of these currents do not merge into a holistic individuality, and pre-existence does not at all mean the reality of being. The transcendence of the Messiah seems very controversial for the apocrypha, and - on the contrary - purely human properties appear sharply in him, in which propitiatory mediation does not find support. The messianic cause is deprived of its religious-redemptive exclusivity. The rabbis even talk little about the Messiah, sometimes failing to understand his purely spiritual mission, and apocalypticism further strengthened this temporary ideal. The Messiah is not at all divine, but only a special person, but mortal, and his role is almost not religious at all, so dreams in the spirit of the prophet. Daniel are an accident and have no basis in principle. The immediate task is to gather and restore scattered Israel, with whom all the hopes of future world renewal are connected, and the entire revival of the pagans lies in turning to this only “savior of the nations.” The messianic change will differ only gradually, and therefore the kingdom of God is not depicted in apocalypticism as such a radical transformation compared to the previous one. A fundamental difference is not allowed, and Pavlov’s very idea of ​​​​abolishing the Old Testament with a new one is considered heretical. What is expected is more of a political - national revolution, in which the leader, of necessity, suffers painful hardships for everyone. This is how the Messianic sufferings that precede the triumph itself are presented in Judaism - and their specifically redemptive dignity is not mentioned at all in Jewish monuments from times around the Christian era, where the idea of ​​a preacher-martyr in the Messiah was directly neglected in comparison with the image of the Deliverer as a king. Messianic deliverance turns out to be strictly national for apocalyptics, but not at all universal. Religiosity is inseparable from national prerogatives, which are always affirmed and protected by Judaism, and in it every good comes from the law and is conditioned by attachment to it. Hence, in Jewish messianic expectations, nationalistic particularism dominates, which in fact was stronger than we now know from various reports. Salvation belongs only to orthodox Jews and for everyone is associated with the triumph of Judaism, which has the power to conquer the world and finally establish the kingdom of God. Even the fate of the ten was considered controversial, although there were votes in their favor. The pagan first had to become a Jew in advance in order to count on participation in the treasured treasures, and the apocalyptic - apocryphal mood was completely hostile to paganism, inspiring hatred towards it. There have always been disputes about proselytes, and in Palestine they were stubbornly seen as second-class people, who were later persecuted for the conversion of many of them to Christianity. 1743 The most striking exponents of rabbinic principles, like the family of Akiba, were also the most strident particularists. It is enough for us to state the main soteriological points of Judaism so that its opposition to Paulinism will be irresistible to everyone. Judaism denies all Pauline presuppositions, and for it the Messiah was a warlike hero, which he could not have been for the Hellenic evangelist no less than for Christ the Savior. Rabbinicism rejects the Pauline atonement, which will be anti-Pharisee in content, for it rests on the thought of non posse non peccare for empirical man. On the contrary, Judaism considers sinlessness to be accessible through people’s own efforts and therefore generally recognizes deliverance as autonomous, and Paul’s entire soteriological system turns out to be unnecessary and unacceptable. With such a fundamental difference, it would be pure fiction that Christianity - along with Islam - is only part of the history of Judaism, from which it directly arose. And if for some medieval rabbis Christians were “proselytes of the gates”, then - in general - the Christian religion is proclaimed to have fallen into paganism for trinitarianism in the confession of God as a spirit with an ethereal-light body, and Paulinism is depicted as directly different from the Pharisaic teachings. After this, there is no need to talk much about private connections, for example, regarding the prevailing theory of legal imputation in the Church, where the forgiveness exalted by Christ was replaced by Paul with justification by crediting the redemptive merits of others, why it has a “forensic” or judicial-justificatory meaning. However, there is no substantive difference here, since the suffering of Christ was precisely for the benefit of people, and salvation is acquired by them solely by the grace of God, but not by virtue of binding righteousness. There is equally no analogy between the Christian revival and proselyte baptism, from which the Pauline doctrine is derived, for Judaism does not accept any sacraments, and they are undoubted in the Pauline epistles. 1744 The Apostle also notes Jewish influences in monastic-ascetic tendencies, however, their presence is doubtful for him in general and in particular points no less than for rabbinism; - the whole truth will be that St. Paul held to the biblical view of “the flesh” without the dualistic arguments that conditioned an implied asceticism. If in this regard he emphasizes the echoes of Jewish pessimism, then the presence of the latter is rejected in favor of the dominance in Judaism of optimism, which is no less indisputable in the evangelist with a pessimistic assessment of sinful reality. They also indicate that St. Paul, who inherited Jewish eschatology, was at first imbued with the “parousian” aspirations of a Jewish nature, since the triumph of the believers was motivated here by the external act of divine confirmation by the glorious Messiah of his kingdom; then mortal dangers that daily threatened life forced the Apostle to accept the idea of ​​spiritual enthronement with Christ. Accordingly, there is a dissonance between the justification of all by goodness and the judgment of works, where in the second case the Jewish relic is simply preserved. But the Hellenic missionary had an unshakable belief that Christianity must achieve adequate external realization, and therefore invariably accepted the need for special divine intervention, the time of which always remained unknown to him, although expectations could have different forms and degrees of tension. Only the dogmatic position was firm that the Lord - by our very Christian existence - is close to us and will certainly manifest himself at a certain moment, and this conviction has a Christian origin and a gracious character. As for the court, it protects the principle of moral responsibility, which cannot be specifically Jewish or contradict the Christian fundamental principles of a strictly moral nature. If Paul’s conversion cannot be naturally deduced from Jewish sentiments, then its fruits in apostolic Christian views turn out to be no less non-Jewish. Mutual agreement serves as the best guarantee of truth, which is well illustrated by the relationship of Judaism to Christianity during its establishment. The influence of the first on the second, even in the very initial era, was weak, with obvious hostility from early times and in a variety of quarters. The synagogue immediately showed unfavorability towards the Christian community and soon launched an active campaign against Christians, classifying them as heretical “minim”, then branding them with prayer curses in the service itself, and finally causing Nero’s persecution. Anti-Christian propaganda is developing, where Jesus is portrayed (according to Eccles. VII, 15) as a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and is condemned with special sayings, of which the rabbis have many about the Gospels. Due to antagonism towards Christianity, Judaism preferred the LXX rough translation of Aquila, which belonged to the school of R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua ben - Hanina, for the book pr. Daniel completely supplanted them with Theodotin's version and tried to impose tendentious corrections in some details. The most liturgical - synagogue way of life in particular is transformed into opposition to Christianity, the selection of prophetic readings is aimed at undermining it, just as it polemically adapts to this even in the formulation of Trinitarian concepts. Paul in particular seemed to have a systematic approach among the Jews - and it is not surprising that the Apostle primarily appealed only to proselytes, and the number of Jewish conversions was small. All this clearly demonstrates that Judaism in itself could not give Christianity, even if the latter were equated with New Judaism. What is needed here is an exceptional act of real revolution, in which individual originality presupposes the existence of historical figures equal in strength. Therefore, attempts at a mythological interpretation of the Christian religion are fundamentally erroneous, when the life of Jesus and the Christological contemplations of the Hellenic evangelist are associated with the Babylonian sagas of Gilgamesh - Xizuthra. 1745 This asserts that there mythical fantasies receive the dignity of genuine events, and the historical Paul, known to us from surviving monuments, was least capable of this. Hence it is inevitable that they are suspected and, as a result, reject the authenticity of all Paul's epistles, turning the entire Pauline system into a tendentious artificial product of the post-apostolic age. What is revealed here is not a scientific commitment, but only a theoretical preoccupation, for which the Paulinian data are inconvenient due to their inconsistency with the hypotheses about the mythical formation of Christianity. And so, since Paul decisively contradicts such attempts, he is completely abolished in order to have complete freedom for his favorite constructions. They are conducted in an evolutionary spirit, when the primacy of Christianity is the assimilation of ready-made acquisitions of Christian culture and, according to the Apostle of Languages, it seems, of course, a natural result of cultural-historical relations. The personalities of Christ and Paul must be eliminated, and before us there will be a socially naturalistic process of the formation of Christianity as a socialist religion, as a communist-proletarian community, where every founder is only an accidental and fleeting phenomenon. Early Christianity, which grew out of socio-economic misery, protects the revolutionary embitterment of discontent, and it is the Apostle of Tongues who is a particularly fierce bearer of the feeling of revenge. We do not see anything similar in reality, and early Christianity was not at all proletarian if in it the communication of property was voluntary, as if in a single family, and served as one of the manifestations of internal transformation, which was religious-moral in source and nature. This means that Christianity must be based on individual religious principles. But Orthodox Judaism did not provide them, and therefore they turned to sectarianism. In this direction they think to kill, as if the diaspora of Perea gave an impetus to the emergence of Christianity, the predecessors of which were the Judeo-Antinomian Gnostics, who prepared and developed it so much that it essentially coincided with the teachings of the heretical synagogue. Christ himself is brought into contact with sectarian apocalyptic circles, and from them specially noted, for example, are the Essenes, with whom both the Baptist and all of Christianity are close in origin and spread. An apocalyptic Christology was directly imposed on early Christians, and various monuments of this kind had a direct influence on the New Testament writings. This is how it is formulated, as if the diaspora gave birth to Christ, and for this very reason Paul preached most in the synagogues of the Hellenic diaspora. This hypothesis simply takes us from the little known to the completely unknown. If in relation to rabbinic Judaism science operates with more or less definite sources, then here everything looks like problematic X's. It is true that there were currents in Judaism that deviated from Pharisaic orthodoxy, but we do not have sufficient materials to decisively state their presence in Palestine and in its vicinity. There is less reason to portray them as such vital and powerful movements that the universal Christian religion would genetically develop from them. Here, according to historical Christianity, the Jewish preceding it is allowed, but they are considered to be so equal that they could not exist separately. The second actually disappears with the undeniable effectiveness of the first. More realistic is the Hellenistic type of Judaism in the form of Alexandrian theosophy. This is a Jewish renewal, which is most natural to consider as a genetic precursor to innovation. In this sense, many theoretical reconstructions are offered, and they are especially attractive because they reveal to us the original elements of Christianity. And they confirm to us that the Christian church was the legacy of the Judeo-Alexandrian mission, which prepared the ground for it and the path of spread, and also supplied it with the ideas of Paulinistic universalism in the transcendental kingdom of God and in the lofty Christology. For Paul in particular, such a pre-mundane Christology is put forward, where the doctrine of the ideal heavenly man refers to Philo. But the latter, being a “classic of Jewish Hellenism,” at this point was determined by dogmatic needs in the dualistic opposition of God and the world. At the same time, their direct contact was not allowed on principle, although it was impossible to recognize the cosmos as self-existent due to biblical-Jewish beliefs. To eliminate collisions, the only way out was to accept a special mediator of creation, who is real only in the reality of the world, but according to the divine pre-worldliness is only an ideal prototype. The Apostle did not have such dualistic needs, and his Christology develops completely differently. Here the deity grounds the existence of phenomenality as a free creation, and not vice versa, and therefore is transcendental, essential or absolute. This pre-existence is clearly not of the Jewish type. And even if Jewish writers say that the early Christians also confessed the divinity of Christ, then this is all the more indisputable for the Hellenic evangelist, when even before him theolatry and Christolatry reigned among believers with the cult of Jesus of a religious nature under the impression of His very personality, and the early Christian catechism affirmed the divine sonship of the Lord. It is no less obvious that, without dualistic obstacles, the Apostle could accept the union of divinity with humanity and assume the miraculous birth of Christ. Here any rapprochement is conceivable only on the basis of moderate Judaism, the representative of which was the Alexandrian theosophist. But from this side, the latter certainly did not communicate anything new in comparison with Palestinian rabbinism and simply imposed Hellenistic concepts on it. All philonic features will be in the Hellenic layers, and these are not akin to peacocking. Thus, the feeling of human powerlessness against sin was far from Philo, and together with rabbinic Judaism, the philosopher was convinced of the availability of autonomous justification, from which it is irresistible that one cannot look for the sources of a religion of salvation by goodness in it. Paul and Philo differed fundamentally, and Christianity turns out to be contrary in nature to Hellenistic Judaism, for which it would be false that it was the mother of the Christian revival in the Gospel of the Redeemer. Then only one formula is permissible, that Jewish Hellenism will serve as an excellent step to Hellenism proper. This is the role that is usually assigned to the book of the Wisdom of Solomon. Again, this subject does not have the necessary clarity to build firmly. The literary composition of this writing is not characterized by typical consistency, which is why even the unity of the author, energetically defended by others, is disputed. And there is no scientific agreement regarding the ideological content. More is heard about the influence of Platonism and Stoicism with the denial of the resurrection under Hellenic dualism and the pre-existence of souls, but the latter is sometimes rejected to the point that innate immortality is not found, which seems to be only a reward for righteousness. Sometimes they generally deny the influence of Platonism and Greek philosophy on this non-canonical book, since it does not see Hellenism in psychology and on the issue of the immortality of the soul. And even if the Apostle Paul knew and used this monument, he still could not draw systematic doctrines from it, since everything there is vague and still causes endless contradictions in science. For example, the Pauline idea of ​​a divine mediator is not revealed from the monument under consideration, since in it Wisdom, not being a pure abstraction, does not appear directly and as a perfect personality. In this case, for Hellenistic Judaism there remains only a secondary role as a transitional stage to Hellenism, which will be the life-giving element of Christian transformation to such an extent that it then appears as if Christianity was completely defeated by it. The share of this agent also includes the universalistic expansion of the early Christian principles, from which the liberating dignity of Paul is extremely reduced, for the process would have been completed without him according to the historical evolution of the established relations of that era. Of course, Hellenism does not produce this metamorphosis alone, but in agreement with other factors. All Christianity is conceived as a syncretic religion, as it is found in Paulinism and St. John the Theologian. This is a special compact mass that united elements of impure Judaism and mixed Hellenism, when their reconciliation and influence culminated in the emergence of a worldwide Christian religious force. In her, the Hellenic element was the most fertilizing enzyme. If there was no borrowing, then by their wide spread Cynicism and Stoicism prepared the ground for Christian seeds, and the teachings of the popular philosophy of the imperial era entered so deeply into the Christian conglomerate that the latter was only slightly different from the Stoic religiosity of that time. On the theoretical side, it is stated that the Hellenes, in interaction with the Jews, developed all the metaphysical and ethical concepts of Christianity. Paul's participation lies in the fact that he accepted the great Judeo-Hellenic heritage from the pre-Christian era and was an eclectic whose roots of doctrines held on and drew nourishment from various soils; This also includes the stoicism with which the very air in Tarsus was filled. By his very origin, bearing two names and being, as it were, two-sided, the Apostle learned a lot from his contemporary education, which was not alien to Christian forebodings. Naturally, with Paul a new world of ideas entered Christianity, giving it a universalistic appearance, which was then finally consolidated. The meaning is again not assessed equally, and even if there are such voices that with his perverted Platonism the evangelist has darkened the true purity of Christ's Gospel. However, all the importance lies in the basic look. He affirms the “combined” nature of Christianity, but this quality does not clarify either its typical nature or historical position, why such an eclectic interpretation is rightly rejected. With the diversity of parts of a conglomerate, there must be a higher cementing and transforming energy outside and apart from them, because it is not created by them, but a whole organism is formed from them. It is precisely in this that the entire vital force lies, for which everything incidental will be more of a material, at least constitutive. This fundamentally confirms the independence of the Christian essence - and in it any rapprochement cannot affect the natural originality. In view of this, a few additional illustrations of this kind in relation to peacocking will suffice for us. It is characteristic here that there is no striking similarity with Hellenism in the doctrines of God, the world and man. On the first point, the divine transcendence of Christ is sometimes emphasized, but it is revealed in a completely non-Hellenic way, for there is no definition according to the category of nature, and everything comes down to the concept of the “image of God.” As for the idea itself, fundamentally and historically Christianity rests on the person of Christ as divine - and if the Lord did not put forward his divine messiahship, then to eliminate political associations. From this side, Paul’s Christology will be objectively given in the fact itself and in the chief apostolic tradition, so it cannot be considered a logical product reflecting in it the then-contemporary concepts of the premium heavenly man. It is important here that Paul’s theology is inseparable from religion and piety and always rests on the experience of life in Christ, and tendentious distortion or suppression of church formality is unnatural for it, since Pavlov’s theories themselves are imbued with their own real life-giving quality, which irresistibly captivates a person precisely with its incomparable individuality. From here we see that for the Apostle Christ is an object not only of faith, but also of religious worship, where the intimacy and fervor of a purely personal relationship certainly do not allow us to think that Paul saw in the Lord a Jewish abstract type of heavenly ideal man. It will forever be impossible to rest in the thought that such a faith of Pavlov does not stand in living connection with the corresponding personality of the Redeemer, and then the Christology and soteriology of the Hellenic evangelist will not be at all a simple development of the ideas of Christ. This, one might say, is light from light, where only different refractions of identical rays are not excluded. Again there is no clear indication of this. We read that the New Testament concept of the wrath of God has an eschatological flavor and therefore is a continuation of biblical-Jewish views, being non-Hellenic in origin; only in Paul (Rom. III, 5) are Hellenic echoes noticed in the fact that the truth of God is revealed in anger. However, the Apostle’s dominant concept is not a realistic one - a naturalistic one, presuming the divine wrath of indignation, but something ethical, in which this wrath of God is actually expressed in human perversion, when sin punishes itself. There is also no sufficient assistance in this area from Hellenism. They say that Seneca was a transitional link from the most sublime principles of ancient philosophy to Christian ideas. Of course, Seneca, more than other Stoics, was inclined to recognize the personality of the deity, which in Stoicism was usually not depicted as a person. With all this, his identification of God with the universe prevails, and the spirit is thought of as material, and Roman Stoicism represents Jupiter as a more legal than a moral being. There is nothing specifically Hellenic about Paul's view of nature. At other points one sees Hellenic arguments on the issue of conscience and immediate posthumous fate, as it is revealed in 2 Cor. V, 1 – 6. But in the first case, the Apostle contains the most general references, which do not at all imply a strictly defined system to the extent that they necessarily postulate it and, without this relationship, turn out to be incomprehensible. On the contrary, the speech is conducted in such a tone that these instructions are considered understandable in themselves for every reader. Here we have the generally accepted formulas of the language of that time for the well-known moral phenomena of the inner life of a person, which does not seem to be Hellenic-philosophical typicality. About posthumous states covered in 2 Cor. V, 1 – 6, it is assumed that here we have St. Paul a new phase of development, when he, abandoning the “parousian” expectations, rejected the previous dogma of bodily resurrection. The reason for this could only be dualistic anthropology, meanwhile, the Apostle’s flesh is not depicted as naturally sinful on a philosophical-Hellenic scale and is not commented on in this sense, for he also allows for carnal resurrection. The idea of ​​a “spiritual body” does not stand in the slightest connection with such concepts and rests on the teaching and example of Christ, since it is directly qualified by the corresponding glorification of the physicality of the Lord (Phil. III, 21). In particular, 2 Cor. V, 1 – 6 gives a completely non-Hellenic construction, since it actually proclaims posthumous incorporeality. And the evangelist had no need to deviate from the primordial hopes of the resurrection, which had biblically revealed foundations, 1746 equally accepted by Judaism, and were sanctified by the indisputable fact of the victorious and saving rebellion of Christ. But the biblical view, which developed essentially with independent autonomy, accepted the inseparability of the immortality of the soul from (animated) corporeality, and therefore there was not even a reason to invent some kind of intermediate posthumous body with full provision for the Apostle of the truth of the universal uprising in the resurrection of Christ. As a result of all this, we get that in his theology, Paul, who did not reflect Greco-Roman legal norms, 1747 is not a rabbinist and not a Hellenist together or separately. He has his own gospel, although the latter was only an adaptation of the Chief Apostolic Gospel to the tasks of universal preaching. Any other conclusion is logically unacceptable, since it is natural that mental conversion did not provide new, purely Christian elements, which were not actually present in either Jewish or Hellenic religious contemplations. There remains one source - in the revelation of the Lord, which served as the primary reason for the Christian enlightenment and apostolic transfiguration of Saul. Being forced scientifically, this result reveals to us the very essence of the apostolic gospel. It, obviously, could not be either subjective or individual, but presupposes an objective support, which in the exploit and teaching of Christ will be truly divine. It is impossible to evade this obligatory conclusion, because then all of Christianity will lose its real historical basis and turn into a mythological mirage, from which its typical existence in origin and nature is absolutely inexplicable. It is true in every way that there is no Christianity without the historical Christ, and it actually grew out of the words and deeds of Christ, as it now rests on a certified tradition about the event, which in each confessor is evidenced by his own experience of sonship with God. Christ will always be the founder, but Paul is only the mediator. You just need to find out the nature and quality of the relationship between them. On this subject there are persistent theories that the Apostle immediately deviated from the ways of Christ, went his own way so much that he did not want to know the true history of the Lord and used one Christian name for his independent system. It is difficult to understand such a mood and find plausible, reasonable reasons for it. In any case, the conversion for Paul meant that he was now leaning towards the side of the persecuted teaching, which he had previously suppressed solely because he did not understand at all. Psychologically and morally, the opposite obligation of the most accurate information was created in order to achieve correct understanding. But if the former was false, being a subjective prejudice, then the true must not be its own construction, but in fact an objective reflection of the events themselves. There was an inescapable mental pressure to renounce any original creativity with complete submission to the commanding voice of factual evidence, which demanded the most obedient and detailed attention. Everything forced Paul to punctually find out about the historical Christ - and the guesses that he did not want this on principle are factually erroneous and theoretically incredible. On the contrary, it is quite natural and even inevitable that the evangelist collected the necessary factual data and relied on them. Of course, all this is reproduced partially and accidentally in his epistles, but the latter are teaching monuments and involve oral preaching of objective - narrative edification. From this side, for them, it is indisputable that they postulate the gospel story if they simply remind readers of it. The Apostle has a sense of knowledge of the traditions about the earthly life of Christ with doctrinal and factual content according to authoritative sources. Therefore, sometimes it is revealed that it coincides with individual sayings of our Gospels. The same applies to more general issues, where, for example, Christology and the idea of ​​the Church are based on the revelation of Christ to Paul, and his characterization of humility as a virtue refers to his knowledge of the destroyed earthly life of the Redeemer. The piety of Christ shines through everywhere in the Apostle and is reflected in numerous factual allusions. The entirety of the material convinces that the evangelist was created on an objective basis and, considering it absolutely obligatory, kept within the framework of historical tradition. Intentional deviations are unacceptable in principle, and involuntary deviations are excluded by actual acquaintance, for which there were all the means and conveniences in communicating with the Lord’s self-seers and with leading Christians. It is then inevitable to accept that the apostolic teaching was identical with Christ’s in general and in particular, although it was applied to special missionary tasks. The difference is permissible not beyond these requirements of accommodation, that the new definitions reveal the true image of the historical Deliverer. So, regarding the Old Testament law, St. Paul had its own shades in different points of view, but without changing the essence of the matter and for the sufficient reason that after the actual abolition by the death of Christ, nomism was outlined more clearly for everyone in its subordinate historical role, and the return to it was not the protection of a living sacred institution, but a disastrous falling away from Christian grace into archaic legalism. And careful observation confirms that the Hellenic evangelist outlines the type of Christ with the traditional objectivity of the general early Christian confession, from which it is not surprising that his teachings, judgments, institutions and sentiments turn out to be generally Christian. And if the sermon of the Chief Apostle was Christ’s, then Paul’s will also be equal, which by its very coincidence with that one is raised to a common and single source in the Lord the Savior. All developments flow from the objective content of the true Gospel of Christ and serve only as explanations for it. Everywhere there is a noticeable connection with historical tradition and dependence on it, which is why for Paul the fundamental affinity, material unity and internal agreement with Christ in dogmatics and morality are indisputable - punctual agreement despite all external differences. Of course, the life and teaching of the Lord reached the Hellenic evangelist through a living tradition, but the latter was entirely focused on these subjects and was so inseparable from them that the very concept of the Gospel soon became identified with narrative tales about the historical Christ. This ensured an objective correspondence, which forces even free interpreters to say that the differences are not so great that it is possible to recognize the deviations of the student from the teacher. From here the historical position of Paul and the true merit of his gospel are more accurately outlined. He is not the founder of Christianity, as Christ was, and relates to it as a redeemed person to the Redeemer, completely in solidarity with Him and a disciple faithful to Him. Jesus is the Lord, before whom the Apostle of the tongues is only a slave and messenger, the first in Christ according to the one and only divine Savior. Then the indisputable slogan of faith and science is not the form: “to Paul” or “from Paul,” but a convinced call for a complete conversion to Christ, but through Paul and with him to the Lord Jesus and God. The Apostle is a reflection of the Savior as a minister of his king or a secondary force in comparison with the creatively conducting one. This role, of course, predetermines the character of the Apostolic Gospel in the sense that it is a reproduction of the preaching of Christ in the exact interpretation of a faithful servant of Christ. Here, the apostolic teaching is strictly determined by independent material and, in theoretical and missionary processing, is imperatively regulated by the principle of constant attention to objective content. Here, neither significant deviation nor ideological enrichment is equally unthinkable. The internal development of Paul's theology is motivated by its heterogeneous mixedness and - if the latter is denied - disappears by itself, since it is impossible and inappropriate to clarify Paul's theology in a religious-historical way, when the constant formulation of the apostolic system is required. On the contrary, given its objectivity, it is no less natural that in it Christology remains essentially unchanged and identical. Apostolic universalism was not at all conditioned historically, as if at the beginning Paul did not recognize the clearly pagan purpose of the Gospel of Christ in 1748 and only then came to this through the experience of disappointment in his fellow tribesmen. On the contrary, part of his conversion was a fundamental sanction of the normality and necessity of the pagan mission, for Saul was pardoned in spite of legalism and could not limit to them the operations of grace, which, obviously, should belong to all who need it due to their sinfulness and helplessness. And the Apostle, of course, immediately understood the legalistic independence of the Gospel without gradual empirical convictions. It has no material development, for the apostolic dogma, at its core, is fully formed before the struggle against Judaistic extremes, since during it it serves for the evangelist as a pre-determined and in every possible way indisputable basis for polemical competitions and edifying exhortations. Therefore, it cannot be assumed or accepted that Paul’s Christian contemplations were revealed 1749 gradually throughout his life or until a certain period, for example, before the publication of the Epistle to the Galatians - and from here the true qualities and merits of Paul’s Epistles are explained. It is said about them that there is no ideological harmony between them, and therefore they are declared inauthentic even as a whole (Bruno Bauer, Rudolf Steck, Daniel Volter, Carl Hesedamm). A plausible justification for this is the reference to the fact that they cannot be understood if the author assumes a complete, coherent worldview, since mutual inconsistency prevails there. But such a conclusion deprives science of the most important historical documents of the apostolic era, and it protests against such barbaric verdicts, trying to preserve the necessary materials for itself. The theory of development seems to be the most important means of salvation, when the entire canonical collection is completely easily assimilated either by Paul himself, or at least by the “Paulinistic school.” And here the good intention is compromised by the fact that it proceeds from premises that in advance belittle and devalue the patronized monuments. Even if they are Pavlov’s, however, they reflect to us only different stages of apostolic growth and dogmatic maturity. Then all messages will be, by their very nature, entirely peacocking, i.e. subjective, depicting the internal process of maturation of apostolic thought. Their importance would be limited to the fact that they outline and explain the personality of St. Paul according to his influence in the history of the formation of Christianity. These would be documents of a purely individual nature and, while reproducing Pavlov’s mental and intellectual nature, would not tell us the objective content as it existed independently in the life and gospel of Christ. In them we would not have at all the real Gospel of Christ, for the comprehension of which their meaning would be directly negative. Fixing a temporary, accidental and partial understanding of the Gospel truth, they would not give it to us in its entirety, and on the other hand they had to give it away, why the actual revelation of Christ would remain an elusive quantity. 1750 These inevitable results of the theory of apostolic dogmatic development are equally destructive for science, for they deprive documentary sources of their witnessing power in relation to the history of Christ. Obviously, the foundation itself is shaky here, and this is illustrated by the heterogeneity of constructions with the mutual devouring of fiercely fighting parties to modern theology, where discord often reigns no worse than the Babylonian confusion. Here the principle itself is false, precisely because “Paulinism” in its entirety cannot be reduced to the existing elements of the then religious contemplation as their original product and “brilliant combination.” In it we have one typical view, which everywhere retains its distinctive originality and only in its disclosure is revealed from different sides in accordance with missionary needs and evangelical foreknowledges. In this external manifestation, variations and gradualism are indisputable, but they do not speak about the actual ideological development of the Apostle because the latter never and never had the task of giving a theoretical, complete presentation of his system as a doctrinae Christianae compendium, as Melanchthon called the Epistle to the Romans. On the contrary, he always spoke and wrote with certain limited goals and for special historical needs. Accordingly, the one and identical Christian truth in individual apostolic documents is illuminated fragmentarily and is covered in its entirety more or less fully only in their entirety, where the most important points of view of evangelical content appear. In this case, diversity in the external, collateral and auxiliary is inevitable, for all this is not absolute and cannot be perceived with unconditional adequacy, not allowing additions. Divine revelation in human application is necessarily reflected in many parts and diversity, when it is outlined more and more fully and definitely. In this regard, movement is noticeable - but not of development, but of disclosure, when what was previously approved is complemented by new theological details and theses, bringing thought closer to the possible comprehension of all wealth. A formal theological growth is taking place with the progressive relief of a broader, punctual, concrete and systematic image. All these general conditions also participated in Paul’s missionary service. It was accompanied by the consistent predominance of the Gospel of Christ, which through this was outlined with gradual precision and formulated with towering clarity of its theological consolidation in word and in writing. Here the diversity and consistency of external detection are motivated precisely by the internal power of the producing factor and therefore do not deny, but presuppose its natural unity, just as the play of light rays refers to its original source in the sun. But Pavlova's messages were only literary echoes of living missionary work and were imprinted with all its characteristic properties. This means that they are also witnesses to the one truth as it is revealed from various sides, and here they turn out to be both historical and dogmatic monuments, revealing the identical and authentic Gospel of Christ in its varied and inexhaustible content. Now the apostolic epistles clearly illustrate to us that in its origin and essence, Paul’s gospel was not just a conditioned product of general historical and individual human creativity, but served as an authoritative expression of the divine truth of Christ. This ensures it a worthy place in the actual development of Christianity, and eliminates evolutionary-genetic assessments that distort its role in apostolic history. It was established through the labors of Christ’s envoys according to the commandment, authority and covenant of the Lord Savior. But not all of these persons were in the same communion with the Redeemer, nor did they coincide with each other to the point of losing all individuality, which, on the contrary, they were ready to protect to the detriment of others. In this they find support for a natural interpretation of the entire further process. In it, the human eye is most strikingly struck by the contrast of St. Paul and the “previous” Apostles, a contrast that has formed the basis of all scientific constructions since the time of Baur. In its harsh form, this theory of Petrenism and Paulinism, undermined by actual research, has left the stage, but its influence still affects with decisive violence in the vast majority of scientific reconstructions, although it is limited in too extreme applications. “Self-witnesses” usually seem to be more faithful to the direct revelation of Christ and firm in its intact image. But at the same time, it is admitted that they were excessively immobile in their Judaistic conservatism and delayed the divinely immense truth in its desire for worldwide dominance as a universal principle of thought and life. Therefore, what they give is a primitive and underdeveloped Christianity. On the contrary, at St. Paul sees an almost complete rejection of historical and factual foundations for the sake of an idea that is extracted from here quite subjectively. With the exception of death and Sunday, he does not mention the actual work of Christ at all, even in the most important detail, and he comments on these events regardless of their true real significance. The liberation of internal Christian content from the prevailing chaotic instability is accomplished here through the objectivity of reproduction and is directed one-sidedly. It is now clear that two such jets, so dissimilar, could not merge naturally. Due to their natural disparity, a struggle necessarily arises between the Hellenic evangelist and the Apostles of circumcision, which either subsided with temporary and forced compromises, or never actually disappeared and invariably moved the entire course of Christian evangelization. This fact is considered the creative beginning of apostolic history, which could only end with the predominance of one principle with partial concessions to another. Due to the superiority of the declared and defended universalism, Pavlovo’s teaching prevailed, and then all other movements came to it and adapted to it, to the detriment of their originality. 1751 However, this was not the last victory and did not express the triumph of complete truth. “Paulinism” itself was an individually bold transformation based on scanty factual data, did not have objective strength, and is only a transition point in the evolutionary progress of Christian truth, serving for it only as a temporary stage. It is impossible that, together with external overpowering, this “peacocking” is deprived of creative vital energy and is replaced by an amalgamated church dogma. 1752 Its distinctive features were not assimilated and retained, since, as a result of objective poverty, it was necessary to select extraneous and heterogeneous materials that did not allow for a holistic and harmonious disclosure of the entire system. The result was actually a conglomerate, united by an animated apostolic personality, but outside of it, scattered and unclear in its main ideas. As a result, St. Paul was essentially an incomprehensible writer for his time and forever remained largely incomprehensible. Paulinistic features are most typically reflected only in Marcion, and even then with some distortion, and then we - except Augustine - do not hear its clear echoes anywhere until the Reformation, 1753, which resurrected and renewed the Paulinistic doctrine. However, again this was only a special application to the requirements of religious consciousness and should later give new modifications. We now have that, historically, the Apostle was not only a mediator in the creation of doctrinal Christianity, as distinct from a genuine historical event. Here, the higher its influence, the more disastrous it is in its significance, since it especially contributed to the rupture of religious faith with its factual basis. The fatal position is affirmed that the historical Jesus is eclipsed and supplanted by the Christ of the Church with the contrast of almost mutual negation, the first remaining unknown, the second turning out to be untrue. 1754 This whole terrible thing, which takes away the objective inviolability of historical Christianity, is motivated primarily by the fact that the Catholic Church is actually Paul’s and with Paul’s Christianity, and “Paulinism” was a subjective creation and therefore imparted to all history the character of individual fragility. Hence the reverse is no less true, that, being a true reflection of the genuine Gospel of Christ, he assimilates all the divine doctrines of the fact accomplished by the incarnate Son of God. Then Christian development acquires the eternal objective authority of the consent of Christ the Church and the historical Redeemer. Let Paulus Paulininterpres be here. We have seen that Paul's gospel was not human in its origin and essence, as St. always declared himself to be. Paul. In the same way, this was no less firmly confessed by the other Apostles, who recognized themselves only as faithful heralds of the word and work of Christ. In both cases, the individual human element is equally smoothed out and subordinated to the superhuman, which completely dominates in the apostolic conduct and service, for private individuals were their movers only in the dignity of Christ. Before this, all external positions and understandings disappear, since it is not by them that the saving gospel that revitalizes the world with the grace of Christ is determined, sustained, and created. Such a fundamental condition was necessarily justified by apostolic practice, because otherwise it would no longer be evangelical, but arbitrary, i.e. not at all Christ's. History strongly confirms these expectations. Undoubtedly, one hundred “samovids” outwardly had an advantage over St. Paul as direct disciples of the Lord, who listened to His speeches, accepted His covenants, and were sent by Him to become the universal Messiah. But at its core, this difference was purely and solely a chronological anticipation, which in itself does not award special privileges where everything depends on the mercy of God (see Matt. XX, 1 - 16). They are only “foremost” (2 Cor. XI, 5. XII, 11), previously called to the harvest, and the apostolic existence itself rested solely on divine authority. From this point of view, a few or even many years earlier or later are completely unimportant if everything comes down to a higher principle, independent of either people or time. Therefore, the converted Saul did not immediately go to Jerusalem, not out of disdain for flesh and blood in the “first”; - the reason was that the revelation completely embraced his soul, while the “secularists” were simply Apostles (Gal. I, 17), only chronologically anticipating the same apostleship. It is clear from this that the ratio of St. Paul and those “before them” immediately begins with a categorical and fundamental proclamation of the identity of all according to natural – individual insignificance with equal greatness of the divine in their limitations. And if such a conviction was adamant and, in fact, undeniable in everyone, then during its implementation there was no room for conflicts and aggravations, since a higher unity reigns everywhere here, suppressing the onslaught of human passions and carnal weaknesses, which give rise to clashes and discord. And we find that in the most critical moments of the Jewish opposition of the spying false brothers it was revealed with all tangibility how illusory their insidious concealment was under the authority of the “imaginary pillars” (Gal. II, 9). All their particular features are rooted in the past, as they once were; but this has already passed in the stream of time, and God, regardless of the faces of people, is not determined by such transitory features, and the proximity to events is often immutable, that those who have not seen bliss have believed (John XX, 29). It is natural that the noted feature - in its tendentious exaggeration by Judaists - does not interest St. Paul (Gal. II, 6), since it does not in the least concern the very dignity of the apostle. As for the latter, it was irresistibly revealed by the successes of missionary work that he who assisted Peter in the same way assisted Paul in the feat of evangelism (Gal. II, 8). And assistance is unthinkable without action, to which it adds to help achieve the goal, coinciding everywhere in its divinity. From this reciprocity, an equal result is obtained in both cases, which was the case for one of the two producing factors, why the second will be no less the same on both sides. The apostolic action in Peter and Paul was of necessity completely identical and attracted all the energy of heavenly advancement, whence it follows that his being was equally divine in their equal apostleship, witnessed by the extraordinary signs of evangelistic service. Because of this, by the apostolic grace given to Paul and abiding in Peter (Gal. II, 9), they are both completely identical Apostles, laboring according to the supreme election and doing the will of the Sender. They do not work by themselves and for themselves, do not pursue personal intentions and are not limited to the private means of their experience or understanding. On the contrary, all their advantage is exhausted by the fact that they are “entrusted with the gospel” (Gal. II, 7. 1 Thessal. II, 4. 1 Tim. I, 11), for them obligatory and unchangeable, and therefore independent. It is clear that this truth must have been felt throughout the entire apostolic period, and we are relieved of the need to consider all the details of apostolic evangelization. 1755 It offers divine content, it is determined by divine consent and supported by divine assistance and undoubted apostleship: - it is everywhere, everywhere, always and with everyone, because they were constantly Christ's. Is it possible here to have a selfish struggle - primordial and continuous - hypocritical reconciliation, diplomatic compromises, external unification with the formation of some kind of “consolidated” Catholic Church? The answer seems to be clear, for now even for rational conviction it is irresistible that in human weakness the power of God is perfected here (2 Cor. XII: 9). With this illumination of apostolic history, Pavlovo’s “Gospel” will no longer be a hostile element bursting in, but only a special stream in the general harmony of the breath of God, renewing the whole world. St. Paul was and remained in fundamental dogmatic agreement with those “before” and with all of early Christianity, but this happened solely because the apostolic gospel was divine in its foundations and translated all secondary elements into a higher principle, with subordination to it. Here, in the essence of Pavlova’s system, it is imperative to allow for a special creative force that surpasses all limited human capabilities, to which it imparts its own energy and itself imparted organic Christian unity. Independent in its origin, this internal power, naturally, is not conditional in nature and in its further disclosure, where the layering of husks on the true grain is unthinkable, since criticism itself insists that in Christianity the outer shell and ideological content are directly inseparable. The real originator and producer will be God, who hands over precious treasures to His chosen ones and speaks through them His saving word, one in all and always immutable. Who is Paul, who is Apollos? But exactly a servant..., to whom the Lord gave (1 Cor. III, 5). Here, in principle, there is no Petrinism or Paulinism, for all the Apostles are messengers of Christ, and Christ is God’s (1 Cor. III, 23). At St. Paul's ancient mimoid was all new (2 Cor. V, 17) both in oral preaching and in written proclamation, mutually coinciding. He is doctor gentium et magister Ecclesiae, of whom it is indisputable that quidquid autem statuerit, hoc Christi in eo loquentis legem putemus. This means that his gospel is not brought by man... but by the appearance of Jesus Christ (Gal. I, 11 – 12). St. Petersburg 1910, III, 18 – Thursday 3 weeks Vel. Post. 1910, IV, 1 – Thursday. 1910, VI, 27 – Sunday. Professor Nikolai Glubokovsky. The Apostle of Languages ​​is revered as an original and influential thinker in the history of the Christian church. It is in view of this exceptional importance that now “the center of gravity of New Testament criticism has been transferred to the study of the entire feat of St. Paul, who can be called the second founder (of Christianity), and his relationship to the Teacher - the Lord." As a result of the stoning in Lystra (Acts XIV, 19), the Apostle Paul was left with scars on his head (on his face), which are equated to the “sores of (the Lord) Jesus.” According to Oscar Michel, the Apostle of Tongues was "der religiose Quellenvergifter und Irrlehrer, Erzveind des Jesus, seines Vollkes und der Menschheit"; he has “1. Antichristliche, falsehe, schadliche Lehre, 2. Verderbliche, vergiftende Wirksamkeit, 3. Personliche intellectuelle und moralische Unreife" with the irreconcilable contrast of the apostolic gospel and the Gospel of Christ, which relate to each other as "das gute und bose Princip, Christentum und Antichristentum, Edelmensehentum und sein argsterGegner Paulinismus, das Princip der Vervollkommung und das Zerstorung,” why St. Paul brought “evil for evil” to the peoples infected by him and everywhere had the most destructive effect. Of course, this is readily accepted and passed off as scientific truth, following the Dutch criticism. The denial of the authenticity of Paul's epistles is interconnected with the denial of the historical personality of Christ the Savior. God illuminated the Apostle “for enlightenment” (with the light of the Gospel) not for him (as he had already received it), but for the pagans. Judaism does not know Paul's faith at all, which - rather - sometimes suffers from a heap of commandments, although this is all for the benefit and glory of the confession. These strict judgments and measures were adopted in Judaism against proselytes due to their Jewish renegade in favor of Christianity. Of course, for religious-historical rationalism, both this sacrament and baptism are simply magical acts. The similarity in essence differs only in details, and to explain the divinity of Christ, especially developed by the Apostle Paul, early divine images are used - the Persian Mithra, the Babylonian Marduk or Tam(m)uz. Immortality became a dogma of Judaism, a dogma enshrined both in the Mishnah (Sang. XI, 1) and in worship. However, this matter is now not so simple and clear. There was a long and complex process with a considerable diversity of opinions, and as a result, the bodily resurrection is increasingly rejected by Judaism. Regarding the convergence of Paul’s words about a will, as irrevocable, with the Greek norms proper, we also note that “the special advantage of the Athenian court in the comedy (Aristophanes “Wasps”) indicates the right to cancel wills.” The Apostle of Languages ​​did not immediately comprehend the full meaning of his mission and the full nature of his teaching. The theory of the development of Pavlov's ideas is now considered almost generally accepted. Among this party, the most characteristic representation of the moderate direction is Ɨ Prof. Auguste Sabatier in his (brilliant in skillful application and application) work L’Apotre Paul. In view of this, it is entirely appropriate to regret that many scholars try to find in Scripture not “eternal thoughts,” but “temporary opinions.” As is known, three special Gospels are found in “early Christianity”. It is considered fortunate that more than one gospel of Paul’s has been preserved, however, there are statements that in general “the New Testament contains many theologies.” At the same time, the course of apostolic history is usually presented in the following form: 1) the supremacy of Ebionism, 2) the conflict of Judaism with Paulinism, 3) the triumph of the latter in a moderate form (by the end of the 2nd century) and 4) the subsequent emergence of “catholic” Christianity. But here, too, Judaism ascribes to itself the honor that Protestantism owes it a significant debt here. the impression made by his (historical Jesus) life and death, it (ancient Christianity), according to the ideas of ancient “animism,” objectified Christ as the independent spirit, identified him with the heavenly Son of man of the apocalypse and the Son of God and the Word (Logos) of gnosis; then, in his ideas, this eternal heavenly spiritual being came down to earth, became human, died, returned to heaven and here reigns on the throne at the right hand of God the Father until his second coming and final judgment. In this divine-human drama of deliverance, the Christian faith received that expression, that form, which was the more capable of defeating paganism, the closer it came into contact with myths. Reviewing apostolic history up to the 2nd century, a significant unity of teaching and mutual recognition of the evangelists of circumcision and Hellenism are stated in most of the Christian world, excluding extreme movements. This can serve as a good adjustment to the tolerances between St. Paul and “before them” a difference of the kind that existed between Wellsie and Whitefield, Luther and Calvin. You might be interested in: