Gospels of Thomas and Philip and Truth - Syriac Christian Church

teachings set forth in the Gospel of Matthew, and who preached a metaphisico-
cabalistic theory entirely foreign to Christ; and this separation was perfected in the
time of Constantine, when it was found possible to clothe the whole pagan
organization of life in a Christian dress, and without changing it to call it Christianity.
Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma I (1885): The Pauline Gospel is not
identical with the original Gospel.... The empty grave on the third day ... is directly
excluded by the way in which Paul has portrayed the resurrection (1 Cor. XV).... Paul
knows nothing of an Ascension.... The statement that the Ascension took place 40
days after the Resurrection, is first found in the Acts of the Apostles.... Every
tendency which courageously disregards spurious traditions, is compelled to turn to
the Pauline Epistles— which, on the one hand, present such a profound type of
Christianity, and on the other, darken and narrow one´s judgment about the
preaching of Christ himself.
James George Frazer, The Golden Bough (1890): If Christianity was to conquer
the world, it could not do so except by relaxing a little the exceedingly strict
principles of its Founder.
Frederick Engels, ‘On the History of Early Christianity’ (1894): Attempts have
been made to conceive ... all the messages [of John's Rev/Ap] as directed against
Paul, the false Apostle.... The so-called Epistles of Paul ... are not only extremely
doubtful but also totally contradictory.
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (Gifford Lectures, 1901):
This is the religious melancholy and ‘conviction of sin’ that have played so large a
part in the history of Protestant Christianity.... As Saint Paul says: self-loathing, self-
despair, an unintelligible and intolerable burden;... [a] typical [case] of discordant
personality, with melancholy in the form of self-condemnation and sense of sin.
William Wrede, Paul (1904): The obvious contradictions in the three accounts
[of Paul's conversion in Ac 9 22 26] are enough to arouse distrust of all that goes
beyond this kernel.... The moral majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry
among his people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-religious
content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's Christology— nothing whatever.... If we
do not wish to deprive both figures of all historical distinctness, the name ‘disciple of
Jesus’ has little applicability to Paul.... Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes,
at least in part, the religious and theological warfare of the present day.
Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (1906); Paul and His
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