Gospels of Thomas and Philip and Truth - Syriac Christian Church

abrogation; compare e.g. Ezek 18 with Mt 6:14-15.)
• 32. Gen 49, Jud 2:16 ff., Mt 19:28, Ac 1:13-26, Rev/Ap 2:2!!, 21:14 || I-Cor 9:1-2,
II-Cor 11:5-13
Finally, we must observe the fact that the permanent tally of the Apostles was
established by the Savior at exactly twelve (for obvious reasons of historical
symbolism— note the symmetry at Rev/Ap 21:12-14), and moreover that Paul was
never numbered in that circle; not even Barnabas in his Epistle recognizes Paul’s
Apostleship!: ‘[Those] to whom he gave the power of the Gospel to preach, and
there are twelve as a testimony to the tribes, because there are twelve tribes of
Israel’ (8:3).
III
Paul of Tarsus is an engimatic and paradoxical figure. Caught in the ethical
dilemma of calling all men transgresors by the Torah, only to reject the Torah
precisely for thus condemning them (Gal 3:10!), he was unacquainted with Christ's
historical teachings and practice; nor was he willing to learn of them from the original
Apostles (Gal 2:6). Thus his soteriology focused entirely on the Passion, of which he
was aware, interpreting Christ's mission as exclusively an OT Sacrifice. Whereas the
innovating Messianic message— Christ's teachings as incarnate in his lifestyle,
elaborated thruout the canonical Gospels prior to the Passion narratives— was
entirely unknown to Paul. (On the 3-valued logic of Biblical morality, See Perfect in
Ph Notes)
This is not to deny that he composed some eloquently poetic passages (such as
Col 1:15-20); but these must, in light of the aforelisted doctrinal conflicts, be
considered no more than ornamentation in Paul's writings. Those documents, in their
entirety, proclaim a discipleship which is fundamentally incompatible with the
message of Christ himself as recorded in the historical Gospels.
Remarkably enough, prior to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus of Lyon at the
close of the second century, there is no single author who quotes from both the
Gospels and Paul's Epistles. There was thus an exceedingly long period of schism
between the traditions of the Twelve and of Paul, prior to the earliest attempts at
integration.
And yet the irony, of course, is that the canonical Gospels themselves, of which
tradition Paul was so manifestly ignorant, were ultimately only preserved by the
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