Scripture and God in Christianity

G. Bernard Shaw argued that "Paul succeeded in stealing the image of Christ crucified for the
figure-head of his Salvationist vessel, with its Adam posing as the natural man, its doctrine of
original sin, and its damnation avoidable only by faith in the sacrifice of the cross. In fact, no
sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on legs again in
the name of Jesus." 262 He concluded that, "Now it is evident that two religions having such contrary
effects on mankind should not be confused as they are under a common name. There is not
one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic utterances of Jesus." 263 In fact "There has
really never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of the limitations
of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus." 264 De Lagard, the champion of a "German religion" and
"national church" traced the ironic development of Christianity back to the fact that " a man with
no call whatsoever [Paul] attained to influence in the church." 265 Rosenberg's remarks in his
"Myth of the Twentieth Century" would be painful to recall here.
This negative attitude towards the apostle Paul is nothing new. The third century anonymous
treatises like "A False Proselyte" or "Messenger of Satan" or "Persecutor of Faith" 266 are enough
to show the sense of negativity harbored by some Jewish-Christian opponents of Paul. G. Bornkamm
has shown that "even in his own lifetime his opponents considered him as apostle without
legitimation and a perverter of the Christian Gospel. In the subsequent history of the early
church, too, there were two very different judgments. For a considerable period he continued to
be sternly rejected by Jewish Christians as antagonistic to Peter and James the brother of the
Lord; in these circles people did not even stop short of ranking him with Simon Magus, the chief
of heretics (Pseudo-Clementine). It is true that from the end of the first century onward there are
a few ecclesiastical writers who hold him in high esteem and quote from his letters (1 Clement,
Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp). Apart from these, however, very soon it was the Gnostics and
leaders of sects, in particular Marcion, who claimed him as theirs, thereby making him suspect in
the eyes of the church. Accordingly, for decades we hear absolutely nothing about him or else, as
in the spurious 2 Peter (written in the middle of the second century), he is mentioned as "dear
brother," but with reserve because, since his letters were hard to understand, "ignorant and unstable
people have twisted" his teaching " to their own destruction" (2 Pet. 3:15f). Even when, as in
Acts, he was hailed as a great missionary or, as in the Pastorals, an attempt was made to preserve
his teaching, and when in other parts of early Christian literature voices were raised in his honor,
the lines along which theology evolved were different from his. Then, unequivocally and finally,
the great church wrested his theology from the heretics and requisitioned it as its own- but in a
tamed and modified form." 267
Since the last century, polemics against the apostle have been observed in writings of many critical
Protestant researchers. "Admittedly, the results of critical Protestant research were largely
negative. Above all, it revealed the gulf between Jesus and Paul and ended by saying that Christianity
was founded not by the Jesus of history who, in spite of all his uniqueness, is to be understood
in the light of Judaism, but by Paul, who turned it into a religion of redemption, the influence
on him being Jewish modes of thought, but also, and specially, Oriental pagan views and
myths, as these have spread mainly in Hellenistic mystery religions." 268 The elements of truth in
these kinds of remarks need corrections. But it is pertinent to mention before we discuss the corrections
and later developments in connection with Paul that these conclusions led many scholars
to the oft-repeated slogan "Back to the historical Jesus" or "Jesus, not Paul". 269
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