How was Paul converted?
1. Paul’s
Appearance and Demeanor
2. Paul as a Jew (Israelite)
3. Paul as a “Hebrew”
4. Paul as Citizen of Tarsus
5. Paul as Roman Citizen
6. Paul as a Pharisee
6.1. Introduction
6.2. The Origin and Meaning of the Name
“Pharisee”
6.3. The History of the Pharisees
6.4. The Influence of the Pharisees
6.5. Pharisaic Theology
6.5.1. Josephus'
Works
6.5.2. New
Testament
6.5.3. Qumran
Sectarian Writings
6.5.4. Psalms
of Solomon
6.5.5. Summary
7. Paul as Persecutor of the Followers of the Way
7.1. Gal 1:13
7.2. 1 Cor 15:9
7.3. 1 Tim 1:12-16
7.4. Acts 22:2b-5
7.5. Acts 26:9-11
8 . The Motive for Paul’s Persecution of the Followers of
the Way
8.1. Jealousy
8.2. Fear of Roman Reprisal
8.3. Apostasy
9. Paul's Conversion
9.1. Introduction
9.2.
Accounts of Paul’s Conversion
10. Paul's Call to Apostleship
1.
Paul's Appearance and Demeanor
It would seem that Paul was not an imposing figure; this was probably because his physical appearance was unimpressive, and he lacked rhetorical skills (highly valued in the ancient world). One should probably assume that he was this way both before and after his conversion. Paul admits that he lacks personal presence and rhetorical skills in his Corinthian correspondence.
1 Cor 2:3-4: I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power.Because of Paul's lack of personal presence, it seems that the Corinthians came to affix to Paul the disapprobious label of “weak” (asthenê), in contrast to the “super-apostles” who had infiltrated the church. This encapsulated their overall appraisal of him, disqualifying him thereby from being considered an apostle. Paul appears to be quoting from the one who still heads up the opposition against him when he writes, “For he says, ‘His letters are weighty, but in person he is weak’” (10:10). Similarly, when he remarks sarcastically that he, unlike his opponents, was too “weak” to exploit the Corinthians, Paul seems to be turning an accusation leveled against him on its head (11:21). The same use of irony to refute the charge of being too “weak” occurs in 2 Cor 13:9: Paul says that he and his colleagues rejoice when they are “weak,” but the Corinthians are strong, because their prayer is for the perfection of the Corinthians. Finally, standing behind Paul’s paradoxical assertions that he boasts in his weakness is the negative assessment that he is too “weak” to be a bona fide apostle (11:30; 12:5). Clearly, for the Corinthian church and probably for other churches Paul was not an impressive figure.
2 Cor 10:10: For some say, "His letters are weighty, but in person he is weak and his speaking amounts to nothing."
There is a description of Paul found in the apocryphal work Acts of Paul and Thecla that is realistic and even somewhat unflattering; since it is not idealized, it is probable that the description of Paul in this work is accurate. The description is as follows:
And he saw Paul coming,
a man little of stature, thin haired upon the head, crooked in the legs,
with eyebrows joining, and nose somewhat hooked, full of grace: for sometimes
he appeared like a man, and sometimes he had the face of an angel.
Paul says that
he is an “Israelite” (Israêlitês) (2 Cor 11:22; Phil
3:5; Rom 11:1). To be an Israelite is to be a Jew in a religious and social
sense (see its use in 4 Macc 18:1; John 1:47; Rom 9:4; 11:1).
(1)
Synonymous with being an Israelite is being from "the seed of Abraham"
(2 Cor 11:22). Paul's use of the term "seed of Abraham" no doubt
derives from his opponents at Corinth who are using the phrase to distinguish
themselves from Paul and others. What they meant by it exactly is unclear.
Probably, they asserted their racial Jewishness by the phrase perhaps
in opposition to being a proselyte. (Based on Paul's use of the term elsewhere
in his letters, however, unlike his Corinthian opponents, being from the
seed of Abraham is defined by faith and not physical descent [Gal 3:16ff.
29; Rom 4:13-17; 9:6-13].) In Rom 11:1 and Phil 3:5, Paul further identifies
himself as from the tribe of Benjamin one of the two tribes (the other
tribe being Judah) occupying the southern kingdom of Judea at the time
of the Babylonian captivity.(2)
(1 Chron 7:6-11; 8; 9:7-9 lists Benjaminite families.)
In
addition to being an Israelite, Paul says that he is a “Hebrew” (Hebraios)
(2 Cor 11:22). To be an Israelite must not be identical with being a Hebrew,
for otherwise Paul would not use these two terms of himself in setting
forth his credentials against his Corinthian detractors. Probably, to
be a Hebrew means that he was from Palestine or had close connections
with Palestine as opposed to being a diasporan or Hellenist Jew. For this
reason, to be a Hebrew means to be fluent in Aramaic and possibly Hebrew
(see Acts 6:1).(3)
(Philo
contrasts the language of the "Hebrews" with Greek [De mut.
nom. 71; De confus. ling. 129].) Paul's use of the term
“Hebrew of Hebrews” (Hebraois ex Hebraiôn) seems to be a
more emphatic way of saying the same thing (Phil 3:5).) Jerome (342-420)
gives expression to the tradition that Paul's family came from Gischala
in Galilee and moved to Tarsus (Comm. ad Philem. 23;
De vir. illus. 5); this would give Paul non-diasporan roots. This
tradition may be true, but there is no way of knowing for sure.
Luke has Paul
say that he was brought up (anatethrammenos) in Jerusalem, implying
that he spent much of his youth in the city. Perhaps, this is why Paul
called himself a "Hebraios." It should be noted, however,
that “Hebrew” (Hebraios) can function as a synonym for a Jew among
Greek-speaking genitles, as the synagogue
inscription found in Corinth testifies: "Synagogue of the Hebrews."
Paul, in addition
to being a Jew, was also a native and citizen of Tarsus in the Roman province
of Cilicia and Syria (Acts 21:39; 22:3); because this information comes
to us only from the Book of Acts many scholars call it into question,
especially since Paul in his letters claims to be "a Hebrews of Hebrews"
(Phil 3:5). But what Luke describes is perfectly feasible. Although Tarsus
was a Greek polis, it was possible for a Jew to become a citizen
of a Greek polis, since it was possible in some cases to buy citizenship
outright.(4)
Besides, Hengel also
points out that Luke's term may not mean full citizenship.(5)
Paul’s statement that Tarsus was no ordinary city (Acts 21:39) is borne out by sources roughly contemporary with Paul. Tarsus was a major Hellenistic city, founded by the Seleucids, and later favored by Augustus. According to Strabo, "There was much zeal for philosophy and all other aspects of education generally among the inhabitants that in this respect they surpassed even Alexandria, Athens and any other place" (Geog. 14.5.13). If he was in Tarsus for any length of time, Paul no doubt spoke fluent Greek; nevertheless, he was still able to speak Aramaic, which was probably the main language spoken by Jews in Palestine (see Acts 22:2) (The risen Christ also spoke to him in Aramaic [Acts 26:14].)
In the Book of
Acts, Luke has Paul say on two occasions that he is a Roman citizen (Acts
16:37-38; 22:25-29). In fact, Paul says that he was born a Roman citizen,
because his father was one (Acts 22:28). Roman citizenship was originally
conferred on free-born natives of the city of Rome, but as Rome conquered
Italy and regions beyond citizenship was conferred on others, but certainly
not all occupants of the Roman empire. Citizenship brought with it certain
legal rights, such as the right to a fair public trial, exemption from
certain types of executions and punishments, and the right to have one's
case heard before the emperor in Rome; the social and economic benefits
were less tangible but just as real and even more important.(6)
How Paul's father or perhaps grandfather, as Jews, acquired Roman citizenship is unknown; there were some obstacles to Paul's family becoming Roman citizens. Jews loyal to the Law, as Paul's father and grandfather seem to have been, were not normally interested in becoming Roman citizens, since to do so would involve participation to a degree in Roman religious practice, which for a Jew would be idolatry. Likewise, it was difficult in general for Jews to become Roman citizens since they tended to be isolated from mainstream Roman society. Nevertheless, for a Jew to be a Roman citizen was not an impossibility; there were several ways of obtaining it. Apart from being in the right place at the right time to benefit from its extension to segments of a whole population, one could purchase Roman citizenship with a large sum of money (see Acts 22:28) or perform some valuable service to a Roman general (Pompey or Antonius perhaps) or one of the Roman proconsuls of the province. In addition, it was the Roman practice to grant citizenship to all freed slaves of Roman citizens (manumission). In one of these ways Paul's family acquired citizenship. There is no reason to doubt Luke's assertion that Paul was a Roman citizen, as some scholars do.
Although he could
speak and write Greek, there is little indication that Paul had a complete
Hellenistic education (in a gymnêsion). First, he writes
in koinê Greek, making no attempt to imitate the Attic Greek
of classical literature, as someone with a Hellenistic education would
have done. Second, he makes few allusions to Greek classical works (e.g.,
1 Cor 15:33: the epigram from Menander, Thais, 218; Acts 17:28:
Epimenides; Aratus; Titus 1:12: Epimenides).(7)
(These are probably the exceptions that proves the rule, since these were
likely common epigrams known to educated and uneducated alike.(8)
In fact, Paul claims
to have been a Pharisee, which is antithetical to the Hellenistic spirit.
He states explicitly that he was a Pharisee in Phil 3:5 (see Acts 26:5).
Luke has Paul say that he is from a Pharisaic family (Acts 23:6: “son
of Pharisees” [huios Pharisaiôn]). (How
influential Pharisaism was outside of Palestine and therefore whether
Paul was exposed to Pharisaism outside of a familial context while in
Tarsus is unknown.) When he says "according to the Law, a Pharisee"
(kata nomon Pharisaios), Paul means that he adhered to Pharisaic
halakot and to Pharisaic theology in general. In Gal 1:14, Paul
says that he advanced in Judaism much beyond his own contemporaries, by
which he means that he advanced in Pharisaic Judaism. Luke records that
Paul explains that he went to Jerusalem to study under Gamaliel, a Pharisaic
teacher (Acts 22:3). Gamaliel was a member of the Sanhedrin, and advised
that leniency be shown towards the apostles (Acts 5:34-39). (Hillel and
Shammai, although both Pharisees, disagreed on many issues; as a result,
two major schools of Pharisaism developed in the first century before
the destruction of the Temple. Whether Paul was a follower of either one
is unknown, but, since Gamaliel was the grandson of Hillel, Paul may have
been a Hillelite.) This man is the teacher referred to occasionally in
the Mishna as Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, (m. Sota 9.15; m.
Git. 4.2-3; m. Abot 1.16). (At what age Paul took up residence
in Jerusalem is unknown; whether his whole family moved there or just
he is also unclear, although Paul does have a sister living in Jerusalem
[Acts 23:16].) Being a Pharisee, however, was not an occupation; it seems
that Paul was a tentmaker (skênopoios) by trade, and supported
himself by this even after he had become an apostle (Acts 18:3).
Understanding
what Paul was theologically before his conversion will illumine what he
was after his conversion and the position of his opponents who seemed
to be influenced by Pharisaism (see Acts 15:5). It is difficult to reconstruct
Pharisaic Judaism because information from the most reliable sources (pre-70)
is not in abundance; what is available as source material is Josephus’
writings, the New Testament and the Qumran sectarian writings. The result
is that many historical questions are unanswerable or equally answerable
by more than one hypothesis. Moreover, it is probable that the Psalms
of Solomon are Pharisaic in origin, even though the term "Pharisee"
(or Sadducee) does not occur in these texts.(9)
Rather, many of these
compositions focus on “the devout” (hoi hosioi) also
known as “the righteous” (hoi dikaioi) and several
other synonymous terms. (Unfortunately, little is known about the activities
of Pharisees outside of Palestine, as Paul was for a time, at least.)
There is no doubt
that early rabbinic Judaism, which appeared after the destruction of the
second Temple, was continuous with the Pharisaic Judaism of the second-Temple
period. Two facts make this certain. First, there are clear resemblances
between the rabbis and the Pharisees (which we derive from sources of
this second-Temple period) with respect to beliefs and practices. Second,
the later rabbis identify second Temple figures as authoritative teachers
known to us as Pharisees from other sources (e.g., Gamaliel Acts 5:34;
Simon b. Gamaliel Josephus, Life 191). But there is the danger
of retrojecting later developments of rabbinic Judaism into the second-Temple
period. There is also the possibility that what the later rabbinic sources
claim about the Pharisees (or synonymous term) is historical fabrication.
For this reason, it is better to draw certain conclusions, even if these
are more fragmentary, by restricting oneself to the pre-70 sources.(10)
6.2. The Origin and Meaning of the Name “Pharisee”
Most likely, the spiritual ancestry of the Pharisees can be traced back somehow to the “pious ones” (Chasidim) referred to in 1 and 2 Maccabees as the opponents of Antiochus’ program of Hellenization and the allies of Judas Maccabees. Exactly how the Pharisees are related to the Chasidim, however, is a matter of debate. (Surprisingly, even though he used 1 Maccabees as a source, Josephus omits all explicit reference to the Chasidm [see Ant. 12.278 / 1 Macc 2:42; Ant. 12.396 / 1 Macc 7:12-15].)
In rabbinic
sources, reference is made to the "early Hasidim" (hasîdîm
hr'šonîm) (m. Ber. 5:11; T. B. Qam.
2:6; B. Nid. 38ab; B. Ned. 10a; B. Menah.
40b-41a). Traditions about the pious behavior of these men are approvingly
cited (Kampen, The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism. A
Study of 1 and 2 Maccabees (SCSS 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press,
1988) 187-207). Kampen argues that the "early Hasidim"
are the Hasidim known from 1 and 2 Maccabees, which means that the
Pharisees have a direct historical connection to the Hasidim. |
Generally, scholars
agree that the name Pharisee derives from the Hebrew parash, meaning
to separate; thus, the noun form perush means separatist.(11)
The question that arises
is whether the name Pharisee was the name originally chosen by the Pharisees
themselves or whether it was a derisive term imposed upon them by their
opponents. If the latter, eventually the term came to be used by the Pharisees
as a self-designation, having lost its negative connotations. (When Josephus
refers to them in his writings as "Pharisees" there is no sense
that the term was ever derogatory.)
|
In the Mishna, the term perushim (“Pharisee”) referring to what Josephus and the New Testament know as Pharisaioi occurs only three times (m. Yad. 4:6-8; m. Hag. 2:7; m. Sota. 3.4); the term also occurs in the Tosepta (t. Yad. 2:20; t. Hag. 3:35) (see E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revoluton: The Pharisees' Search for the Kingdom Within [Nashville: Abingdon, 1978] 125-79). In these texts, the Pharisees are portrayed as having legal views that differ from those of the Sadducees/Boethusians. (There are other occurrences of the term perushim in early rabbinic writings with a different meaning [t. Sota 15:11-12; t. Ber 3:25; m. Sota 3:4].) It is possible that the rarity of the term Pharisees in early rabbinic writings is to be explained by the fact that the early rabbis, the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees, did not want to be identified by a term originally intended as derogatory. Indeed, another term for the Pharisees is "sages" (chakamim) (see m. Mak. 1:6; t. Sanh. 6:6; t. Roš. Haš. 1:15) (In t. Yoma 1:8, the term Pharisee is used synonymously with "sage") and "scribes" (sopherim) (t. Yad. 3:2). This would also explain why the term Pharisee does not occur in Psalms of Solomon. But this hypothesis does not explain why Josephus and the New Testament use the term Pharisee with no hint of opprobrium, nor does it explain why the Qumran community would not have used the term perushim to refer to the Pharisees. |
In addition, it is not clear from what the Pharisees were supposed to have separated themselves. It is most often argued that separation was from sources of ritual uncleanness, and in particular the "people of the land" (am ha-eretz), known from rabbinic sources. This conclusion is based on the assumption that the Pharisees are more or less equivalent to the haberim. But the Pharisees may have originally separated themselves from contact with Jews whom they considered to be apostate.
In
early rabbinic literature there are references to haburot,
associations of Jews whose aim was to ensure a supply of properly-tithed
produce and to ensure that this supply was kept ritually pure. Since
a purpose of the members of a habura was to eat their ordinary
meals in a state of ritual purity, the food used in the preparation
of meals must begin as ritually pure. Thus, to eat one’s ordinary
meals in ritual purity was a commitment that required separation
from non-haberim, usually identified as the ammei ha-eretz,
in many aspects of life, especially in the areas of buying produce
and eating. This is because non-haberim were suspected of
not taking sufficient precaution against the ritual contamination
of food and indeed of not accepting the halakot for the handling
of food to be consumed by non-priests (m. Demai 2.3; t.
Demai 2.2, 12). (According to t. Demai 2.10, some
non-haberim were known to follow the rules of the haberim
in private.) The relationship between the Pharisees and the haburot
is a question that scholars have long debated. No doubt the institution
of the habura evolved over the centuries, so a simple identification
of the haberim in early rabbinic writings with second-Temple
Pharisees is historically unwise. Nevertheless, there is evidence
in early rabbinic writings that second-Temple Pharisees sought to
eat ordinary meals in a state of ritual purity and formed themselves
into haburot in order to ensure that this would happen (Sanders,
Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishhah [Philadelphia:Trinity
Press International, 1990], 250). In m. 'Ed. 1.14, in a
debate between the houses of Shammai and Hillel, the am ha-eretz
stands in contrast with these two houses with respect to the cleanness
and uncleanness of vessels. In other contexts in the Mishna, it
is the haberim who stand in opposition to the ammei ha-eretz
in this respect, so that one could argue that in the second-Temple
the Pharisees are to be identified with the haberim.
In m. Demai 6.6, similarly, the houses of Shammai and Hillel
debate whether one should sell his olives to anyone but a haber;
the assumption is that, since olives, being wet, will be rendered
ritually impure by being touched by anyone who has not washed his
hands before handling the olives. A haber, by contrast, would
cleanse his hands before touching the olives, thereby preserving
them as ritual pure and therefore edible for a haber. The
implication is that the Pharisees are haberim. Likewise,
in m. Hag. 2:7 the ammei ha-eretz are contrasted
with the Pharisees with respect to the ritual defilement of clothing
(midras impurity), whereas in m. Dem. 2:3 the contrast
is between the ammei ha-eretz and the haberim. This
implies that haberim is synonymous with the term Pharisee
(perushim). Finally, in t. Shab. 1.15, it is debated
whether a perush (i.e., a Pharisee), when ritually impure
because of a discharge (a zav), is allowed to eat with an
am ha-eretz, who is assumed to be equally as ritually impure.
The assumption is that it is the norm for Pharisees to eat their
ordinary meals in a state of ritual purity. Now whether every "good"
Pharisee in the second-Temple period was a haber is impossible
to say; nevertheless, it is clear that the institution of the habura
antedates the early rabbinic period, having its origins in the second-Temple
period and that the Pharisees were haberim (see Westerholm,
Jesus and Scribal Authority [Lund: Gleerup, 1978] 62-67;
Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah, 187). In
general, one can say that to be a Pharisee is to be a haber,
since this was the only reliable way ensuring that one’s ordinary
meals were ritually pure (contrary to Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution,
173-75).
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6.3.
The History of the Pharisees
Most of the data
on the history of the Pharisees come from Josephus' War and his
later Antiquities. Josephus' source is no doubt Nicolas of Damascus,
who tends to be hostile to the Pharisees.(12)
(Josephus sometimes uncritically takes over this negative assessment of
the Pharisees, even though he himself claimed to conduct his life as a
Pharisee [Life 10-12].)(13)
The earliest historical
reference to the Pharisees is dated to the reign of John Hyrcanus (134-104
BCE). Josephus reports that the Pharisees were supported by the people
and even by the Hasmoneans for a while, which lasted until one Pharisee
(a certain Eleazar) insulted John Hyrcanus by saying that he should give
up the high priesthood because his mother had been captured in war (in
accordance with Lev 21:14), insinuating that he was illegitimate (War
1.67-68; Ant. 13.288-99; see the parallel account in b. Qidd.
66a; b. Ber. 29a). Hyrcanus was furious and switched his allegiance
to the Sadducees. (There was probably more to the dispute than this isolated
incident, but no further information is provided.) What is lacking in
the Antiquities is an account of the origin of the Pharisees.
As a group, they just suddenly appear in Josephus' account of the Hasmonean
rulers. Either his source had no such historical account or Josephus omits
it.
During the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (104-78 BCE), the Pharisees made the political mistake of allying themselves with the Syrian king Demetrius III (Theos Philopater Soter) against Alexander; this indicates that the Pharisees were at variance with the Hasmoneans and their Sadducean supporters. The result was that Alexander crucified 800 Pharisees while dining in a conspicuous place with his concubines and had the families of the 800 killed in front of them while they died on the crosses (Ant. 13.372-9; War 1.93-98). Although Josephus does not identify Alexander's victims as Pharisees, it is clear from what he says later that a large number must have been, because the Pharisees sought to persuade Salome Alexandra to avenge the death of these Jews (see below); this implies that many of those crucified were Pharisees or at least sympathizers. This event is also referred to 4Q169 (Nahum Pesher). The lion of Nahum 2:11b is interpreted as Demetrius III. But in the interpretation of Nahum 2:12a, the lion appears to become Alexander, whose victims, mentioned in 2:12a, b are said to be "the seekers of smooth things," (the term used for the Pharisees) whom the furious young lion hung alive, i.e., crucified. The author criticizes the "seekers of smooth things" for plotting to depose Alexander and bring the independent Jewish nation under the control of the Seleucids again: "[But God did not permit the city to be delivered] into the hands of the kings of Greece, from the time of Antiochus until the coming of the rulers of the Kittim" (4Q169 frg. 3+4, col. 1.3).
Josephus also relates that some unnamed opponents began to revile Alexander Jannaeus when performing his high priestly duties during the Festival of Tabernacle, and pelted him with “kitrons” (Ant. 13.372-73; War 1.89). These opponents said that Jannaeus was descended from captives and was unfit to hold the high-priestly office. In response Jannaeus had some 6,000 of them killed. More than likely these unnamed opponents were Pharisees and sympathizers with the Pharisaic movement.
Under Queen Salome Alexandra (78-69 BCE), the widow of Alexander Jannaeus, the Pharisees were given free reign in the area of politics/religion; this was their golden age (Ant. 13.408-16; War 1.110-12). As said already, the Pharisees sought revenge on those who were involved in the crucifixion of Alexander's opponents. If it dates from the period of Salome, 4Q169 (Nahum Pesher) gives further evidence that the Pharisees dominated politically and religiously during the reign of Salome. The author interprets Nahum 3:1-7 as a prediction of the imminent eschatological destruction of “the seekers of smooth things,” who have led the nation astray.
According to rabbinic sources, Simeon ben Shetah (one the pairs [zugot] [m. Hag. 2.2]) was a prominent Pharisee at this time. He was the brother of the queen Salome Alexandra, the wife of Alexander Jannaeus (b. Ber. 48a). With the king's permission, he replaced the Sadducees on the bet din (Sanhedrin) with Pharisees (Meg. Ta'an. 10.) Pharisees who had taken refuge in Alexandria returned to Jerusalem, including Joshua ben Perahiah, the former president (nasi). He was elected president anew and Simeon ben Shetah was elected vice-president (ab ben din). Upon the former's death, the latter became president and Judah ben Tabbai became vice-president (b. Sota 47a). When Alexander Jannaeus became hostile towards him and the Pharisees, however, Simeon ben Shetah was forced to go into hiding (b. Ber. 48a). When the king died, Salome Alexandra gave free reign to Simeon ben Shetah and the Pharisees. With Judah ben Tabbai, Simeon ben Shetah worked to impose the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law upon the nation. He is called called "the restorer of the Law," who "has given back to the crown of learning its former brightness" (b. Qidd. 66a). |
During the reign
of Herod the Great, little is found on the Pharisees in the historical
sources; this probably because they had little direct political influence.
(Neusner, however, unconvincingly argues that the Pharisees had become
de-politicized and turned their attention to tithing and ritual purity
of ordinary meals; in effect they became a table-fellowship organization.)(14)
Herod ruled with the
support of the Romans and to a lesser extent the Jewish aristocracy, which
included few Pharisees, since the aristocracy tended to have Sadducean
allegiance. Likely the Pharisees were ambivalent or hostile to Herod as
king as most Jews seemed to have been. It seems that the Pharisees
were as directly involved in the politics during Herod's reign as much
as circumstances would allow. References in Josephus’ works to Pharisees
during Herod's reign include the following.
Josephus provides a few accounts of events in which the Pharisees were involved from this historical period. He reports that two Pharisees—Pollion and Samaias, his student—advised that the populace to open the gates of Jerusalem to Herod, when Herod put the city under siege. According to Josephus, Pollion (and Samaias?) had earlier advised the Hasmonean Hyrcanus II and the members of the Sanhedrin that Herod should be executed for putting to death guerilla leaders without authorization, as the Law prescribes, because if his life was spared he lived he would return to persecute them (see Ant. 14.172-76; 15.370). So why these two were in favor of allowing Herod entrance is unclear. Herod, nonetheless, rewarded these two for their support. About 20 BCE, Herod required that his subjects take an oath of loyalty; Pollion, Samaias and most of their disciples (i.e., other Pharisees) refused. But because of their earlier support Herod left this infraction unpunished (Ant. 15. 370; see also Ant. 17.41-42 where the same event is described). The 6,000 Pharisees who did not take the oath were merely fined.
Samaias and Pollion are to be identified with Shemaiah and Abtalion mentioned in later rabbinic writings (b. Pes. 66a; 70b; B. Yoma 35b). According to rabbinic tradition, these men were one of the "pairs" (zugot), pre-tannaitic authorities, who presided over the bet din ha-gadol (Great House of Judgment probably identical to the Sanhedrin) as the president (nasi) and vice-president or "father of the court" (ab bet din) (m. Peah 2.6). There are five pairs listed (m. Hag. 2.2). They are said to have received the tradition from Judah b. Tabbai and Simon d. Shetah (m. Abot 1.8, 10). The pairs not only exercised political authority but also were guardians of religious tradition (m. Abot 1.1). Hillel is said to have studied with them (b. Yoma 35b). They are called "the great men of the age" (b. Pes. 66a) and "interpreters" (darshanim) (b. Pes. 70a). The halaka that the Passover lamb must be offered even if Passover falls on a Sabbath is attributed to them (b. Pes. 66a). In addition, Abtalion is supposed to have said, "You sages, be careful of your words, lest you draw upon yourselves the punishment of exile and be banished to a place of evil water (dangerous doctrine), and your disciples, who come after you, drink thereof and die, and the name of the Holy One thereby be profaned" (m. Abot 1.12). Shemaiah is credited with saying, "Love labor, shun power, and make for yourself no friends of ruling powers" (m. Abot 1.10). Their experiences with Hyrcanus II and then Herod may stand behind these sayings. |
Josephus says that near the end of Herod's life Pharisees were involved in a plot to transfer power from Herod's sons to Pheroras, Herod's brother; Salome, Herod's sister, disclosed the plot to Herod, and Herod executed those Pharisees most responsible and those in his household who approved of the plot (Ant. 17. 43-44; War 1. 571).
At the end of Herod's life (4 BCE) two unidentified teachers (sophistai), Judas and Matthias, who were probably Pharisees, encouraged some young men to pull down the golden eagle that Herod erected over the gate of the temple. Herod executed those responsible (Ant. 17. 149-67; War 1. 648-55).
After Herod’s death, the Romans sought to incorporate Judea into the Roman empire by putting it under the direct rule of procurators (after Archelaus’ short-lived reign); to this end a certain Coponius was appointed procurator and Quirinius, the newly-appointed legatus of Syria, was given the task of taking a census of the population of Judea for taxation purposes. In response, Judas of Gamala, called the Galilean, and a Pharisee named Zadok began an unsuccessful popular rebellion against Roman hegemony in 6 (Ant. 18.3). In their view, direct Roman rule was slavery, and they encouraged the people to fight for independence. This event at least proves that not all Pharisees were non-political during this period. (Josephus says that this was the origin of the so-called “fourth philosophy,” Zealotism; it could be that the more revolutionary Pharisees allied themselves with the newly-form Zealot movement, since Josephus says that they differed from the Pharisees only in their desire for their “passion for freedom” [Ant. 18.23].)
Josephus describes how the Pharisee Simon b. Gamaliel assumed a leading role in the Jewish war against Rome. Unfortunately for him, Simon disliked Josephus and sought to have him replaced as a general. A deputation of men, some of whom were Pharisees, was sent to Galilee to investigate the situation (Life 190-98; 216; 309).
6.4. The Influence of the Pharisees
Josephus reports that the influence of the Pharisees among the people was great, especially among the city dwellers (Ant. 13.298; 18.14-15); he claims that the Pharisees were the leading “sect” (hairesis) (War 2.162). (The influence of the Pharisees was particularly great among the women of Herod’s court [Ant. 17.41].) When relating an account concerning Hyrcanus II, Josephus says that the Pharisees’ influence among the masses was so great that when they spoke against a king or a high priest, the masses gave them heed (Ant. 13.288); although this remark about the Pharisees occurs in the context of his account of Hyrcanus II, Josephus seems to intend his remarks to apply to every historical period. Josephus adds that the Pharisees were powerful enough to cause Herod some grief (Ant. 17.42). This implies that the Pharisees had an indirect influence over Herod, functioning to keep Herod in check with the ever-present threat of popular rebellion. By contrast, the Sadducees had influence only among the wealthy and the ruling class (Ant. 13.298); Josephus explains that they had to submit to the decisions of the Pharisees, for otherwise the masses would not tolerate them (Ant. 18.17). Moreover, the masses gave heed to the Pharisaic regulations on prayers and the sacred rites of divine worship (procedures in the Temple) (Ant. 13.288, 298; 18.14-15). (In Matt 23:1-3 Jesus says that the Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, which means that their legal decisions are to be considered binding; this is a probably reflection of the fact that the Pharisees already occupied that position.)
Although many scholars view them as exaggerations, Josephus’ statements about the Pharisees’ political influence are credible (see Rivkin, A Hidden Revolution). Neusner (From Politics to Piety), following M. Smith ("Palestinian Judaism in the First Century" Israel: Its Role in Civilization (Ed. M. Davis; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1956), 67–81, however, argues that, in his Antiquities (unlike his earlier work War), Josephus inaccurately claims that the pre-70 Pharisees had political power in order to convince the Romans that the post-destruction Pharisees should likewise be entrusted with political power. Similarly, E. P. Sanders unsuccessfully tries to explain away the passages in Josephus’ works concerning the power and influence of the Pharisees by saying that they derive from Nicolas of Damascus and are intended as complaints against the Pharisees as political meddlers (Judaism. Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992] 388-99). M. Yoma and other tractates from the Mishna agree that things were done in the Temple according to Pharisaic interpretation. |
Reliable sources for an understanding of Pharisaic theology include Josephus' works, the New Testament and the Qumran sectarian writings. In addition, the Pharisees were probably responsible for the Psalms of Solomon, as traditionally has been held; if so, these texts represent the Pharisees' critique of political events and Pharisaic theological self-understanding dating from the first century BCE.
In his works, Josephus describes the Pharisees and compares them to other Jewish groups prevalent at that time; some scholars are quite skeptical about the reliability of Josephus' statements, but this is largely unjustified. When reading Josephus' writings, what must be kept in mind, however is the fact that he is writing for a gentile audience, so that his descriptions of the Pharisees may employ non-Jewish concepts and terminology.
A. War 1.110
These
are a certain body (suntagma) of Jews that appear more religiously
observant (eusebesteron) than other Jews, and seem to interpret
the laws more accurately (akribesteron). |
According to Josephus, Pharisees are a distinct group of Jews who have a reputation of excelling other Jews in religious observance and being exact more interpreters of the laws. All Jewish "sects" interpreted the laws, but the Pharisees were viewed generally as the most accurate interpreters.
B. War 2.162-64, 166
But
then as to the two other orders at first mentioned, the Pharisees
are those who are esteemed most skillful in the exact explication
of their laws, and hold the position of the leading sect. These
ascribe all to fate (hermarmenê) and to God, and yet
allow, that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally
in the power of men, although fate does co-operate in every action.
They say that all souls are imperishable, but that the souls of
good men only are removed into other bodies, - but that the souls
of bad men are subject to eternal punishment.... Moreover, the Pharisees
are friendly to one another, and are for the exercise of concord,
and regard for the public; but the behavior of the Sadducees one
towards another is in some degree boorish, and their conversation
with those that are of their own party is as barbarous as if they
were strangers to them. |
Josephus explains that the Pharisees are the most accurate interpreters of the laws of all the Jewish sects (hairesis), which implies that the majority of Jews sided with them. It is said that they attribute everything to Fate (heimarmenê) and to God, at the same time, holding that to act rightly rests for the most part on all people, but that fate cooperates. Josephus uses the abstract concept of "fate," but as a Jew he no doubt is referring to God's sovereignty over creation. To attribute everything "to fate and to God" is to say that God has pre-determined all things. Nevertheless, the Pharisees exempted human behavior from God's sovereignty, or at least believed that "fate" and human freedom were somehow compatible (It is not clear what the clause "And fate co-operates means" [boêthein...tên heimarmenên].) It seems that the fact that God has ordained all things does not annul the freedom of the will and, therefore, moral responsibility. The Pharisees also believe that every soul is imperishable and the soul of the good passes into another body while the souls of the wicked suffer eternal punishment. In this case, Josephus is accommodating himself to his gentile readership, because it is probable that by the passing of the soul of the good into another body, he is referring to the resurrection of the body. By the soul's imperishability, he means that the soul survives the death of the body, not that the soul is by nature imperishable. The reason that Pharisees are so courteous to one another, whereas the Sadducees are not is not at all clear, and had puzzled historians. (Whether this was in Josephus' own source is unknown.)
C. Ant. 13.171-73
At
this time there were three sects among the Jews, who had different
opinions concerning human actions; the one was called the sect of
the Pharisees, another the sect of the Sadducees, and the other
the sect of the Essenes. Now for the Pharisees, they say that some
actions, but not all, are the work of fate, and some of them are
in our own power, and that they are liable to fate, but are not
caused by fate. But the sect of the Essenes affirm, that fate governs
all things, and that nothing befalls men but what is according to
its determination. And for the Sadducees, they take away fate, and
say there is no such thing, and that the events of human affairs
are not at its disposal; but they suppose that all our actions are
in our own power, so that we are ourselves the causes of what is
good, and receive what is evil from our own folly. |
In this section from the Antiquities, Josephus distinguishes three Jewish "sects" (haireseis) according to their views on "fate" (heimarmenê). According to Josephus' sources, in the early Hasmonean period, during the reign of Jonathan (161-42 BCE), there existed Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. What is not stated, however, is how these three "sects" came into existence. The Pharisees believe that some events are the work of fate (heimarmenê), but not all; other events depend upon human beings. (In War 2.162-64, Josephus refers to "to fate (heirmarmenê) and to God," whereas in the later Antiquities he only refers to "fate.") Josephus uses the abstract concept of "fate," but as a Jew he no doubt is referring to God's sovereignty over creation. Unlike the other two "sects," the Pharisees believe that God predetermines some events, but not all; in particular, God does not predetermined all human behavior, but allows for human freedom. This description of Pharisaic belief differs slightly from that in War 2.162-64, insofar as in the latter human actions seem to be paradoxically both free and determined by God.
The
Jews had for a great while three philosophies peculiar to themselves;
that of the Essenes, that of the Sadducees, and the third sort of
opinions was that of those called Pharisees; of which philosophies,
although I have already spoken in the second book of the Jewish
War, yet will I a little touch upon them now. Now, for the
Pharisees, they live simply, and despise delicacies in diet; and
they follow the guidance of that which their teaching (logos)
has selected and prescribed to them as good for them they do; and
they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe its dictates
for practice. They also pay a respect to such as are in years; nor
are they so bold as to contradict them in any thing which they have
introduced; and when they determine that all things are done by
fate (heimarmenê), they do not take away the freedom
from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that
it has pleased God to make a temperament, whereby what he wills
is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or according
to vice. They also believe that souls have an immortal rigor in
them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments,
according as they have lived virtuously or according to vice in
this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison,
but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on
account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the
body of the people; and whatsoever they do about Divine worship,
prayers, and sacrifices, they perform them according to their direction;
insomuch that the cities give great attestations to them on account
of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives
and their discourses also. |
In this section of Antiquities, Josephus enumerates several distinctives of Pharisaic belief and practice. (He calls Pharisaism a "philosophy" for the sake of his gentile readers.) First, the Pharisees, in contrast to the other "philosophies," are moderately ascetic: "They live simply, and despise delicacies in diet." Second, the teaching of the Pharisees consists of prescriptions for behavior ("as good for them they do"), which probably refers to the Pharisaic halakot, which are interpretations of and elaborations on the written Law. Third, unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees are respectful towards their elders and their teachings. What he no doubt means is that the Pharisees accept the traditions passed down by their teachers as authoritative, unlike the Sadducees, who have no such authoritative tradition. Fourth, the Pharisees believe both that all things occur according to "fate" (heimarmenê), or God's sovereignty, and that human beings have free will to "act virtuously or according to vice." Restated in Jewish terms, the Pharisees believed that human beings have the freedom to obey or disobey the Law, even if God pre-ordains other historical events ("fate"). Fifth, they believe that the soul of a person survives the dissolution of the body (having an "immortal rigor") and resides under the earth. This is an adaptation of the biblical teaching of Sheol, the destination of all who have died. In this adaptation, Sheol is the permanent dwelling of the wicked, being a prison, where they are punished, but only the temporary dwelling of the righteous, for they will be restored eschatologically to some type of corporeal existence (anabioun) (see 1 Enoch 22). For a Pharisee, to live "virtuously" is to obey the written and oral Law, whereas to live "according to vice in this life" is not to do so. Finally, the Pharisees have the support of the people and are thereby in a position to control how worship in the Temple is carried out.
E. Ant. 13. 294, 297-98
| And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments....What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the wealthy, and having no following among the people, but the Pharisees have the masses on their side. |
Josephus indicates that Pharisees are more lenient in matters of punishment (as compared to other Jewish groups). They also hold to the validity of certain regulations that are not contained in the laws of Moses. What he means is that in addition to the written laws found in the Torah the Pharisees have unwritten laws that have been passed down from their teachers. It is true that the written laws must be clarified so that these clarifications implicitly become part of the written laws. (According to early rabbinic writings, the Pharisees and the Sadducees disputed over how to interpret the written laws and came to different conclusions.) But the Pharisees not only clarified the written laws differently than the Sadducees (and the Essenes), but also had laws handed down from past generations and accepted as authoritative that were not found or even implied in the Torah. The Sadducees by contrast reject the unwritten laws, "the traditions of the fathers" (ta ek paradoseôs tôn paterôn) and hold only to the laws of Moses, the "regulations that are written" (nomina ta gegrammena). (The mishna contains both clarification of the written laws and unwritten laws. An example of the latter are the regulations about handwashing found in m. Yad.) Moreover, the Pharisees have the support of the majority of Jews.
The Pharisees are referred to often and in unflattering terms in the gospels; there are also references to the Pharisees in the Book of Acts.
A. Mark 7:1-23 = Matt 15:1-20 7:3-4
The Pharisees are said to hold to the traditions of the elders and not to eat until they have washed their hands first and they wash things like cups pitchers and kettles. They want to know why Jesus does not require that his disciples adhere to these traditions: "The Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?" (7:5). In Mark 7:9, Jesus accuses the Pharisees of setting aside the Law of God in order to observe their own traditions: "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition." (See in this regard Matt 23:4, where Jesus criticizes the Pharisees for imposing too great a burden on the people.) The implication is that the Pharisees had binding, extra-biblical legal traditions, which is called halakot in rabbinic writings.
B. Matthew 23:1-36 23:15
Jesus says that
the Pharisees proselytize, seeking Jewish converts to their interpretation
of biblical religion: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte"
(23:15a). In Matt 23:16-22, Jesus accuses the Pharisees of making distinctions
with respect to the swearing of an oath that do not exist; this implies
that they were involved with specifying exactly what the Law required.
In Matt 23:23, Jesus portrays the Pharisees as meticulous when it comes
to tithing: they would even tithe herbs grown in private gardens. In Matt
23:25-26, Jesus implies not only that the Pharisees are concerned about
purity issues, but that they attempted to make obedience to the purity
laws easier by distinguishing between the outside and the inside of a
cup or dish. It is probable,
as the saying implies, that the Pharisees distinguished impurity of the
inside of a vessel from impurity of the outside (see m. Kelim).(15)
Jesus then both parodies
this type of distinction-making, and uses it metaphorically to make a
point: when the inside is clean (when the heart is pure), then the outside
(actions) is also clean.
C. Acts 23:6-8
Luke says that the Pharisees believe in the resurrection and in the existence of angels and spirits, unlike the Sadducees: "For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor an angel, nor a spirit, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all" (23:8).
6.5.3. Qumran Sectarian Writings
The members of the community opposed the Pharisaic halakot, i.e., their oral interpretations and elaborations of the Law. They made a derogatory pun on the key Pharisaic term halaka. Rather than calling the Pharisees "Interpreters of Laws” (dorshe halakot) as they no doubt called themselves, the Qumran community referred to them as "seekers after smooth things (i.e.,"Interpreters of false laws") (dorshe halaqot), which is an allusion to Isa 30:10, where Isaiah criticizes Israel for rejecting the prophetic message of impending judgment and prefering to hear "smooth things." The major criticism of the Pharisees is their leniency with respect to the Law, hence the name "seeker of smooth (easy) things"; this is borne out by the halakot found in the Dead Sea Scrolls: consistently they are stricter than what we know to be Pharisaic halakot and early rabbinic halakot. The point is that the Pharisees replace biblical commandments with their own regulations. In the Damascus Document, probably the Pharisees are criticized as follows: "For they sought smooth things and chose delusions and sought out loopholes and chose the fair neck and justified the evil man and condemned the righteous man and caused the covenant to be broken and the statute to be violated" (CD 1.18-20; see also 1QH 10.32; 12.7-12; 4Q163 [Isaiah pesher]; 4Q169 [Nahum pesher]; 4Q177 [Catena]). The members of the Qumran community no doubt included the Pharisees as "the sons of darkness," who would be destroyed at the time of God's visitation; in the view of those responsible for the production of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Pharisees led the people astray with their deviant halakot. From what is said about the "seeker of smooth things" in 1QH-a 2.32; 4.7-12, some Pharisees were involved in the persecution of the community or leaders within it.
The Qumran community
criticizes an unidentified group referred to only as "builders of the
wall" (CD 4.19-20); probably this criticism was directed against the Pharisees,
who create extra-biblical laws in order to protect the Law (see m.
Abot 1.1: "And make a fence around the Torah") (see also CD 8.12-13,
18; 19.31).(16)
The point is that the
Pharisees replace biblical commandments with their own regulations.
The Psalms of Solomon provide a data for a more complete understanding of Pharisaic beliefs and practices. Surprisingly, however, there are no references to "the tradition of the elders" or oral law, which is distinctive of Pharisaism. What is found in these texts is a messianic expectation and teaching on the possibility of the removal of guilt.
A. God’s Discipline of the Nation
With respect to the Israelite nation, God’s judgment is also his discipline (7; 8:26, 29; 9:2) In line with the deuteronomistic interpretation of history, when Israel breaks the covenant through sin, God brings disaster upon the nation that is designed not only to punish but also to discipline the recalcitrant people. The ultimate purpose is restoration. Several of the Psalms of Solomon (2, 7, 8, 17) interpret Pompey's entrance into Jerusalem, resulting in the de facto end of the Hasmonean dynasty, as the discipline of God on the nation, in particular the Hasmonean religious and civil administration. (But, even though he was the instrument of God's discipline on the nation, Pompey's defeat at the hands of Caesar's allies was interpreted as God's judgment on him for his atrocities in Jerusalem [2:27-30].) The author of Ps. Sol. 8 professes at first his puzzlement and consternation that God could allow Pompey to invade Jerusalem, but when he learns of the secret sins that provoked God to bring judgment on the people, he understands that God’s judgment is just (8:4-8; see 1:7). The obligation of the individual Jew is always “to justify God or declare God to be righteous” (see 2:15; 8:7, 26; see also 4:8). Any misfortune that befalls the nation must by faith be accepted as God’s just discipline.
B. Human Beings as Free and Responsible, Eschatological Judgment and Resurrection
God chose Israel from among the nations as God’s “portion and inheritance” (Ps. Sol. 14:5). The individual Jew, however, must choose to maintain himself as part of the nation insofar as he is presumed to be free and responsible: “Our works (are) in the choosing and power of our souls, to do right and wrong in the works of our hands” (9:4a). Nevertheless, there are also some deterministic-sounding passages in the Psalms of Solomon (5:4; 8:14; 16:5–8). It follows that God must judge human beings: “And in your righteousness you look upon human beings” (9:4b). For God to “look upon” human beings is to judge them. But God always judges impartially, according to a standard. This is what is meant when it is said that God judges in righteousness (9:4b; see also 4:24; 8:24–25; 10:5). The same thing is meant by saying that God is a righteous judge (2:18; 9:2; see 4:24), that he shows himself righteous (8:23) and that his judgments are righteous (5:1; 8:8, 29). A person is qualified as righteous insofar as he obeys the commandments, the Law, which was given for he purpose of life (14:2–3). The Law is the means of life, because those who make themselves righteous by doing the Law are judged to be deserving of life. (It is not specified on what basis those who do not know the Law will be judged; presumably, the author only has Jews in mind.)
God executes judgment in this life: “The one who does what is right saves up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does what is wrong causes his own life to be destroyed” (9:5). Accordingly, Pompey’s invasion of Jerusalem and his subjugation of the Hasmoneans is viewed as a particular example of God’s judgment in history (2:16–19; 8:8, 27–29; 17:8-9). Nevertheless, there is an eschatological thrust in Psalms of Solomon, so that, although God’s judgments are manifest in history, there will be a final judgment of the wicked and the righteous. At this time, the righteous will be raised and inherit to eternal life, whereas destruction awaits the wicked. Several passages bear on this. In Ps. Sol. 2:31, the author speaks God’s raising him up to glory, a possible reference to bodily resurrection, but God’s “putting to sleep the arrogant for eternal destruction in dishonor because they did not know him” (2:31). (In what follows in Ps. Sol. 2:32–35, the author establishes that God judges and repays the sinner for what he has done to the righteous.) In another psalm, the author explains that there will come a time when God will “look upon” the righteous, by which is meant that he will be merciful to them and vindicate them in judgment. At this time, the sinner will be destroyed and no longer remembered; this is the share of sinners forever (3:11–12). This is the “day of mercy of the righteous” (14:9; see 19:9). The ones who fear the Lord, however, “will be raised up to eternal life” (3:12), which is probable allusion to Dan 12:2. Along the same lines, the author of Ps. Sol. 15 explains that sinners will be destroyed “when God looks upon the earth with judgment” (15:12b), which, in this context, is idiomatic for the time of final judgment. The ones who fear the Lord, however, will “receive mercy” in this day, and “will live by God’s mercy forever” (15:13a). The implication is that even the righteous do not fully deserve eternal life, but are granted this because of God’s mercy. (Ps. Sol. 15:8–9 establishes that God will judge sinners, but does not specify that this will occur on the day of judgment.) Finally, in Ps. Sol. 14:9–10, the final destiny of sinners is said to be “Hades, darkness and destruction” (14:9). These sinners “will not be found in the day of the mercy for the righteous” (14:9b), which is time of the eschatological vindication of the righteous; at that time also the righteous “will inherit life in joy” (14:10; see also 12:6).
God condemns sinners “by means of the thoughts of their hearts” (17:25), by which is meant their fundamental intentions, which are contrary to the will of God as expressed in the Law. Thus, sinners are condemned for their hypocrisy (4:2–3, 8) and their greed, which leads to oppression and exploitation of other Jews (4:9–13). Yet, in the Psalms of Solomon, it is also said that God repays sinners according to their works (2:16a, 34; 17:8b) or, synonymously, according to their sins (2:16b; 17:8a). Sinners are condemned for what they do, including sexual immorality (2:11–14; 4:4–5; 8:9, 10; 16:7–8), deceit and slander (12:1–2) and desecration of the Temple (2:3–5). It seems, therefore, that the sinner is defined as one who fundamentally wills evil and then acts accordingly; intention and action are inseparable, the latter being an expression of the former. The righteous, on the other hand, may sin, but do not have that fundamentally evil disposition that characterizes the sinner. Rather, the righteous are described as those who “remember the Lord at all times” (3:3a), “fear the Lord” (4:23; see 6:5), are “ready to call on the name of the Lord” (6:1; see 9:6), “bless the name of the Lord” (6:4), “hope in him” (6:6) and “love him in truth” (6:6; 14:1). All these epithets describe a person who is fundamentally allied with God and committed to the fulfillment of the Law; this is what makes the righteous what they are: those who sin non-habitually and therefore uncharacteristically. Nevertheless, as with the sinner, the righteous are ultimately defined by what they do and what they do is a function of the exercise of their free wills. Thus, the possibility always remains open for the righteous to become a sinner (and, conversely, for the sinner to become righteous); the categories of sinner and righteous are not destinies, but generalizations.
E. Forgiveness and Discipline of the Individual
The righteous are not perfect. The difference between them and the wicked is that the former do not sin habitually and, when they do sin, they repent immediately. If anyone deserves mercy, it is the righteous, because of their past record of obedience; nevertheless, according to the conditions set forth in the Torah, God has no obligation to remove the guilt resulting from any sin deemed worthy of extirpation in the Tora. God as merciful, however, provides the righteous with the opportunity for the removal of guilt when they sin: “The righteous constantly searches his house to remove unrighteousness in his transgressions” (3:7; see 13:10). “To remove unrighteousness in his transgressions” seems to mean to remove the unrighteousness that has resulted from violations of God’s commandments, so that the even is being used instrumentally (“by means of”). (In Ps. Sol. 3, the righteous man, described in 3:5-8, stands in contrast to the sinner, described in 3:9-11. ) The psalmist adds that the righteous man atones for his (unknowing?) sins (agnoias) by fasting and the humbling of his soul” (3:7–8). It is possible that the use of both paraptôma in 3:7 and agnoia in Ps. Sol. 3:8 reflects the biblical distinction between intentional and unintentional sins (Num 15). Indeed, the clause “He atones for his (unknowing) sins seems to be influenced by Lev 5:18 “And the priest shall atone for him for his unknowing sin.” Lev 5:17-18 describes the procedure for the atonement of any unintentional sin. But, given the looseness of the terminology, it is more likely that the terms paraptôma and agnoia are more or less synonyms, standing in relation to each other in a synthetic parallel construction; the term hamartia in Ps. Sol. 3:10, used to describe what the sinner does, may be intended as a harsher term. The use of agnoias may be a translation of šggh, and thereby carries with it the connotation of unintentionality. The implication of calling the righteous man’s sin an agnoia is that the righteous person, by definition, always sin unintentionally either unknowingly or uncharacteristically, as not reflecting his true nature. Thus, when the righteous person turns to him in fasting and the humbling of his soul, God grants forgiveness for any sin committed, since all of the sins of the righteous are unintentional and forgivable, as the Tora specifies. Ps. Sol. 3:7-8 is reminiscent of Lev 16:29-30, part of the instructions for the observance of the Day of Atonement, insofar as in both the phrase “to humble one’s soul” occurs. The implication seems to be that the possibility of atonement remains open perpetually for the righteous, and is not offered simply on an annual basis.
In another psalm, the author confesses, “He [God] will cleanse a soul from sin in confessing and restoring (9:6). When they sin, the righteous have the confidence that, provided that they confess and make restitution, God will cleanse them from their sins. It is clear that the soul that is cleansed is the soul of the righteous because the sinner would not confess his sin and seek cleansing. The author continues, “And whose sins will he forgive except those who have sinned? You bless the righteous, and do not accuse them for what they have sinned. And your goodness is upon those who sin, when they repent” (9:7). In this passage, the same group of Jews is called both “righteous” and said to sin or have sins. The righteous who sin, however, are not in the same category as the sinners who sin. Even though the righteous sin, the righteous are not sinners. The difference between them and the sinners is that the righteous repent when they sin. The adverbial phrase “in repentance” serves to qualify the sinning by the righteous and to specify the condition upon which God will not accuse them when they sin but will allow his goodness to be upon them. To repent is to turn from the sin towards a renewed obedience. Interestingly, no reference to atoning sacrifice as part of the means of obtaining forgiveness is found in the Psalms of Solomon, but this could easily be accidental.
Divine discipline is said to effect the removal of guilt. It is significant that God is called “the one who disciplines us” in Ps. Sol. 8:29, though in a national context. God distinguishes between the wicked and the righteous, in that the former are punished for their sins, whereas the latter are disciplined: “For the discipline of the righteous in ignorance (en agnoia) is not the same as the destruction of the sinners” (13:7). The adverbial phrase en agnoia probably denotes, not so much the unknowing, but more the uncharacteristic transgressions of the righteous, which is to say all their sins (see 18:4; 3:8). The difference between punishment and discipline is that the latter is salvific in intent, whereas the former is retributive. Because “the righteousness of the devout” is “before God” (9:3), when uncharacteristically a righteous person sins, God responds to him as a father would to a disobedient son, by disciplining him (10:9). No doubt, this is what is meant by proving the Lord right (3:5; see also 2:15; 8:7) or proving the Lord’s judgment right (3:3) when undergoing the discipline of God (3:4): it is the acceptance of God’s discipline as deserved. Submission to such discipline has the effect of removing the guilt of the sin that occasioned the discipline: “For the Lord will spare his devout, and he will wipe away their transgressions with discipline” (13:10). In another psalm, the author declares, “The one who prepares his back for the whip shall be cleansed, for the Lord is good to those who endure discipline” (10:2; see also 14:1–2; Sir 23:2). The willing acceptance of correction from God leads to purification from sin; this probably should be taken to mean that the suffering resulting from the discipline is atoning.
C. Davidic Messiah and Eschatological Salvation
As already indicated, the author(s) of Psalms of Solomon sees Pompey’s invasion as God’s judgment and discipline of the nation. Presumably, one of the reasons that God brought Jewish political independence to an end was that the Hasmoneans had usurped the kingship from the rightful heirs, the descendents of David. The author of Ps. Sol. 17 speaks of how the Hasmoneans despoiled the throne of David (17:6). In Ps. Sol. 17:21-25, he asks God to raise up for Israel a king from the line of David (“son of David”) to replace the deposed Hasmoneans and to purge Jerusalem of its gentile occupiers. It is said that the king of Israel will be "Messiah of the Lord" (Christos kuriou), and will be a righteous king, taught by God (17:31-32). There will be no unrighteousness during his reign. The Messiah would gather to himself a holy people, judge the twelve tribes of Israel and purge Jerusalem of all impurity; gentiles will come to the Temple to see the glory of the Lord and bring with them the dispersed of Israel. During the Messiah’s reign, it seems that dispersed Israel will return to the land (17:31; see 8:28; 11), which shall be divided according to the biblical tribal divisions (17:28). The Messiah is said to be "powerful in the Holy Spirit" (Ps. Sol. 17:37), probably alluding to Isa 11:2. In Ps. Sol. 17:23, there is a clear allusion to Ps 2:9, implying that the author is interpreting the latter messanically. In Ps. Sol. 18, the author interprets the nation's present misfortunes as divine discipline, which, it seems, is intended to lead to the nation's cleansing for the day appointed by God to bring mercy through the Messiah. In Ps. Sol. 18:4-5, the author asks God to purify the nation through discipline for the appointed day when the Messiah will reign.
One can conclude the following about Pharisaic theology from Josephus' writings, the New Testament, the Qumran sectarian writings and the Psalms of Solomon.
- The Pharisees were voluntary religious association within Judaism that sought to proselytize. They were the leading "sect," had the support of the people, and functioned as religious authorities.
- The Pharisees sought the proper interpretation of and obedience to the Law. This led them to bring clarifications to the Law, which other non-Pharisaic Jews rejected. The Pharisees had a reputation for lenient interpretation thereby making obedience to the Law easier and more attractive to the potential converts.
- The Pharisees had a body of oral laws that were not found in the written Law but were binding on their adherents ("the traditions of the elders"). These had status of a second law.
- The Pharisees believed in angels and spirits.
- The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead.
- The Pharisees believed that human beings (Jews, in particular) were free to obey or disobey the Law; they also believed that things were also predestined by God.
- The Pharisees believed that God was a righteous judge. There would be a final, post-resurrection judgment in which the righteous would be rewarded and the wicked punished, the basis of which would be obedience/disobedience of the Law. Obedience was probably also defined in terms of the oral law.
- The Pharisees believed in the possibility of the removal of guilt but only for the righteous. (This presupposes that the righteous are not perfect but only habitually obedient.)
- The Pharisees believed that a Messiah, a descendent of David, would appear and reign in Israel.
7. Paul as Persecutor of the Followers of the Way
Paul the Pharisee opposed the early followers of the Way (an early designation for believers), and persecuted them even unto death. This is in keeping with the prominent and activist role that Pharisees played in the religious and political life of Jews in Palestine, as Josephus describes. Although it may seem inconsistent with the later description of Paul as "weak" by the Corinthians, Paul was bold enough to lead an attempt to eradicate the Way. Luke describes Paul’s persecution of the church in Acts 7:57-58; 8:1-3; 9:1-2.
7:57 But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. 58 When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
8:1 Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death. And on that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Some devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. 3 But Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women, he would put them in prison.
9:1 Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. |
According to Luke, Paul witnessed and approved of Stephen’s stoning (Acts 8:1) and sought to eradicate the church: he also went house to house dragging men and women out of their houses and putting them in prison (Acts 8:3). More than this, Paul went to Damascus to find followers of the Way and bring them back to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1-3; see Acts 22:4; 26:11). Luke also records Paul’s own description of his persecution of the followers of the Way first to the mob at the Temple (Acts 22:4) and then to Agrippa (Acts 26:11); these accounts agree with what Luke described in Acts 8-9.
In his letters, Paul occasionally mentions his role in persecuting the church, usually with remorse.
| For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it |
In his brief biographical description written to authenticate his apostleship to the Galatian churches, Paul explains that he persecuted the church and tried to destroy it.
| For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. |
Paul adds a biographical element to a tradition that he had received and passed on to the Corinthians: that after he appeared to the other apostles, Jesus appeared last of all to him; he then confesses that he is the least of the apostles because he persecuted the church of God.
| I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor. Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. |
Paul says that even though he was a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man, God showed him mercy because he acted in ignorance. It seems that he classified himself as the worst of sinners because of his persecution of the church.
| I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the High Priest and the Sanhedrin can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. |
In his speech before the crowd in the Temple, Paul says that he "persecuted the followers of this Way to their death," implying that he was somehow involved in the death of the followers of the Way. It seems that once he had them arrested, in some cases they were executed. He also indicates that he extended his persecution beyond Jerusalem, to Damascus.
| I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the holy ones in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority of commissioning of the chief priests. |
In his speech before Herod Agrippa II, Paul explains that he voted that imprisoned believers ("holy ones") should be put to death. He actively sought out followers of the Way in synagogues; his strategy was to force them to blaspheme, which is an offence punishable by death in the Law. How in particular Paul did this is not stated. Likewise, what the legal procedure was in which Paul took part is not clear. Paul extends his activity as far as Damascus.
8. The Motive for Paul’s Persecution of the Followers of the Way
Paul describes himself as exceeding his contemporaries in his "zeal" (zêlôtês) for the traditions of his forefathers (Gal 1:14). This zeal led him to persecute the followers of the Way probably because he perceived them as somehow undermining "the traditions of the fathers." As a persecutor of what he considered to be an aberration from acceptable Judaism, Paul stood squarely within in the tradition of the biblical Phineas, who resorted to violence in order to uphold the Law (Num 25:1-16; Ps 106:30). Not surprisingly, Phineas becomes a role model in second-Temple Judaism, justifying the use of violence for religious reasons (Sir 45:23-24; 1 Macc 2:54; see also Jdt 9:2-4; Jub. 30:5-20 on Gen 34). So Paul could easily have justified his own use of violence against Jewish followers of the Way by appealing to the precedent of Phineas, although there is no evidence that he actually did. In the New Testament sources Paul does not explain why in particular he found the followers of the Way to be offensive. In other words, he does not say why he believed that he was doing a service to God by attempting to stamp out the early Christian movement. (Not every Jew in the first century believed that the followers of the Way posed a threat to Judaism and Jewish life. Gamaliel, Paul's Pharisaic teacher, counseled tolerance as a policy towards the Way: "Leave these men alone. Let them go. For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men [Acts 5:38b-39a].) Likewise, Luke does not provide explicit data by which to answer this question in the Book of Acts (7:57-58; 8:1-3; 9:1-2). There are three possible motives for Paul to have persecuted the church, which should be treated as hypotheses. It is possible that Paul was motivated by more than one of these reasons.
Simple jealousy may have motivated Paul and others to persecute the followers of the Way. Before Paul was actively involved in persecuting the church, the Sanhedrin had already debated about how to deal with the movement; it is possible to derive some insight into why Jews in general and Paul in particular opposed the Way. In Acts 5:17, it is said that the Sanhedrin arrested the disciples on account of jealousy (eplesthesan zêlou); this explanation of motive, however, is still ambiguous, because we are not told the nature of their jealousy. Presumably, like many established religious body, they resented the claim of this new religious movement that God was active in their midst and had thereby by-passed the religious establishment. The motive of jealousy is compatible with other, more principled motives; the former often serve as a pretense for the latter.
A possible motive for Paul’s desire to suppress the early followers of the Way was fear of Roman reprisal. The Sanhedrin was partially composed of Pharisees, one of whom was Gamaliel, Paul's former teacher. As indicated, he disagreed with the majority opinion on how to deal with the apostles; his advice to the Sanhedrin may give some insight into the nature of the opposition of the Sanhedrin to the Way (Acts 5:35-39), and by extension to Paul’s own opposition. In Acts 5:35-38, Gamaliel reminds the Sanhedrin that there were other messianic movements in the recent past; the two that he mentions are those associated with Theudas and Judas the Galilean. The use of the messianic movements spawned by Theudas and Judas the Galilean as precedents in dealing with the Way suggests that Gamaliel thinks that the problem caused by the Way for the Jewish authorities is similar to the problem caused by Judas (and Theudas) a few decades earlier. This implies the concern of the Sanhedrin was that the Way might evolve to become an armed rebellion with messianic overtones, which would bring down the wrath of the Romans upon the Jews. With these recent failed messianic movements in view, Gamaliel counsels the Sanhedrin to let the Way takes its course, since, if it is from God it could not be opposed, but, if it has a human origin, it shall fail, like the past messianic movements. In his view, presumably, Roman intervention would be isolated and quick, and would not lead to a national uprising.
| The Theudas Gamaliel mentions is unknown to us, although most scholars try to connect this Theudas with one mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 20. 97-98), who appeared several years after Judas the Galilean. (Thus, many scholars believe that Luke is guilty of historical error.) This Theudas is called an impostor (goês) by Josephus; he means that he is a messianic impostor, who promised the people that he was a prophet and would part the Jordan and lead the people through it. (It is likely that he was attempting to imitate Joshua's conquest of Canaan, but the “conquest” that he had in mind to carry out was probably eschatological deliverance.) Proof that the Theudas mentioned by Josephus had messianic pretensions is the fact that the procurator, Cuspius Fadus (44-46), sent out the cavalry and killed Theudas, bringing his head back to Jerusalem. Fadus saw Theudas’ messianic pretensions as a threat to the public peace. This Theudas (obviously) could not be the one mentioned by Gamaliel, since he predates Judas the Galilean (6 CE). Likely the Theudas mentioned by Gamaliel was similar in intent to the later Theudas. After the first Theudas, there arose Judas the Galilean, whose activities Josephus describes (War 2. 118, 433; 7. 253; Ant. 18. 4-10, 23-25, 20. 102). Judas led a revolt against Rome c. 6 CE., which was crushed; this revolt had messianic overtones, as did the later Zealot movement of which Judas was said to have been the founder. Judas and the Zealots believed that God would come to the aid of the revolutionaries. |
Paul the Pharisee may have been motivated to persecute the followers of the Way, because he considered them to be Jewish apostates. Evidence for this comes from the narrative of Stephen’s execution, of which Paul approved. (Saul approved of the sentence [Acts 8:1] and even looked after the clothes [the outer garments] of the witnesses, who were the first to throw stones [see Deut 17:7; Lev 24:14].) Because he offended the members of a Diaspora synagogue in Jerusalem ("Synagogue of the Freedman"), Stephen was dragged before the Sanhedrin and accused by means of "false witnesses." Stephen spoke in his own defense (Acts 7); what he said infuriated the Sanhedrin. As a result, he was stoned; after the stoning, a full-fledged persecution broke out. (Gamaliel's policy of moderation went by the way.) As already indicated, Saul was closely involved in this persecution (see Acts 8:3).
Stephen was accused
of speaking against the Temple and the Law (the two pillars of Judaism)
by false witnesses; he was supposed to have said that Jesus would destroy
the Temple and change the (Mosaic) Law. It is likely, however, that the
accusations of the false witnesses were not total fabrications, but misrepresentations
of what Stephen had really said. Stephen did not speak against the Temple
nor did he say that Jesus would destroy the Temple. But what he probably
did say was that Jesus' atoning death had abrogated the need for atoning
sacrifices, offered in the Temple. In addition, he attacked the assumption
shared by most first-century forms of Judaism, including Pharisaism, that
God dwelt in the Temple, even that God had a permanent dwelling place
on earth: Stephen says so explicitly in his defense before the Sanhedrin
(Acts 7:48-50).(17)
(See Mekilta Pisha
42-50 for an early rabbinic [and probably Pharisaic] rejection of Stephen’s
“liberal” position.) Thus, his views on the Temple would also commit
him to the position that the Mosaic law is not eternal, at least the part
of the Mosaic law that concerned the Temple. Such an extreme position
would be intolerable to any type of Palestinian Jew. This is probably
what made Stephen so offensive to Paul and other Jews. Paul and other
Jews probably considered Stephen to be a Jewish apostate and to be representative
of at least a significant portion of the followers of the Way. This may
have been a reason for Paul to persecute all the followers of the Way.
The fact that the apostles were not scattered after Stephen's death is something of an anomaly in Luke’s account, indicating, probably, that he has not given his readers all the information necessary to reconstruct the event in its entirety (Acts 8:1). The disciples were allowed to stay in the Jerusalem apparently because they did not agree with Stephen, or at least were perceived not to agree with him. Although they were not pleased with the apostle's preaching, the Sanhedrin and other prominent Jews of the upper classes did not persecute them. This gives evidence that there was a conservative wing of the church associated with Palestinian Jews (Hebraioi) and a more progressive wing associated with Hellenistic Jews (Hellenistoi), to which Stephen belonged. Saul the Pharisee will later adopt views similar the Hellenistoi.
T. Donaldson explains Paul's persecution of the early Christian movement in sociological terms (Paul and the Gentiles. Remapping the Apostle's Convictional World [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997] chap. 11). According to him, Paul saw Christ and Torah as antithetical ways of defining the community destined for eschatological salvation; Christ and Torah "represent mutually exclusive ways of defining membership in the people of God--Christ and Torah as rival boundary markers for the community of the righteous" (284-85). In the early Christian movement, Christ displaces the Torah because acceptance of Christ and membership in the community that acknowledges him as Lord displaces the Torah as defining the people of God: Christ became a "rival boundary marker for the people of God" (292). Paul interpreted the claims about Christ as a threat to "the social cohesion of the larger Jewish community" (287). He was particularly vexed by the claims of the early Christian movement because he himself was involved in proselytizing among gentiles seeking to lead them to full acceptance of and obedience to the Law (see the example of Izates in Ant. 20.34-48). This is supposed to be the meaning of Paul's statment in Gal 5:11: "If I am still advocating circumcision." (Paul continued to hold the same view after his conversion—resulting from his vision of the risen Christ—except now he accepted the view that Christ defined the community of salvation and not the Torah.) There were two aspects to Paul's disapproval and denunciation of the early Christian movement. First, it wrongly included within itself as righteous (i..e, acceptable to God) those whom the Torah would exclude. Donaldson seems to mean Jewish sinners ("those lax about Torah obedience" [297]) and maybe some uncircumcised gentiles. He writes, "This, in my opinion, pinpoints part of Paul's problem with the Christian movement: the Christian community included in its fellowship those whom the Torah would declare to be unrighteous; therefore the Torah was not necessary" (291). Second, the early Christian movement wrongly required all Jews, even the obedient and zealous, those whom the Torah would declare as righteous, to believe in Jesus; this meant that the Torah was not sufficient as a means to determine the people of God, the community of salvation (291).
Donaldson's hypothesis about Paul's reason for persecuting the early church has two weaknesses. First, it is improbable that the Jewish church included within itself Jews for whom obedience to the Law was not required. If so, then what distinguished Christian Jews from other Jews was simply their acceptance of Jesus as the Christ. In this case, they would have not have been any more of a threat to the social cohesion of the larger Jewish community than any other messianic movement. If the Torah is supposed to define the Jewish community and not eschatological or messianic beliefs, then the early Jewish Christians should not have been a threat. Second, it is not clear how the exclusive claims of the early Christian movement would differ essentially from those of other Jewish groups, who were not persecuted by other Jews. The Pharisees defined the community of salvation as those who accepted the tradition of the fathers. Likewise, the Essenes defined it as as those Jews who accepted the salvation-historical claims of the Teacher of Righeousness and the community's stricter halakic views. Thus, on Donaldson's hypothesis, it is difficult to explain why Paul the Pharisee would take offence at the early Jewish Christians alone. |
Paul asked the
High Priest and the chief priests for letters to the synagogues in Damascus
that would give him the authority to arrest the followers of the Way and
bring them back to Jerusalem (Acts 9:1).(18)
That there were many Jews (and therefore several synagogues
in Damascus) can be inferred from the fact that Josephus says that in
66 CE many Jews were massacred there (War 2. 560-61). Non-Jewish
residents of the city are said to have killed 10,500 Jews (War
7. 368 has a figure of 18,000). Those whom Paul was pursuing were probably
those who had fled to Damascus after the persecution broke out (Acts 8:1).
(Two centuries previously, religious refugees who called themselves the
men of the new covenant fled to "Damascus" in order to escape
persecution; this is probably coincidental [Damascus Document]
and assumes that "Damascus" should be interpreted literally.)
Evidence that the Romans
supported the authority of the High Priest and the Sanhedrin, giving them
the right of extradition, is found in 1 Macc 15:15-21. In 138 BCE, the
Romans on account of the treaty of friendship with the Jews instructed
Ptolemy Euergetes II and other heads of states in the area to hand over
to Simon any Palestinians who had fled to other lands to avoid prosecution. Josephus
records that Julius Caesar confirmed Hyrcanus II in all the existing privileges
of the position of High Priest (Ant. 14. 194), including this
one, presumably.
On his way to Damascus to carry out his intentions, a most ironic thing happened to Paul: he encountered the risen Christ. There is no evidence that Paul knew the historical Jesus, but he could have. At any rate, Paul met the risen Christ while on his way to persecute the followers of the Way. When dealing with Paul's conversion, a historian must decide whether Paul really did encounter the risen Christ or not. Often, historians avoid this question, claiming that it is beyond the purview of the historian; many, while saying this, nonetheless interpret Paul's conversion experience in psychologizing ways. For example, it has been said that Paul had a bad conscience and began to identify with his victims, or that Paul had a repressed ambivalence towards the Torah, and projected this ambivalence on the early Christians, because they had a solution to the very problem with which he was struggling. Then the tension broke, as Paul suddenly realized the correctness of the early Christian understanding of the Law. But both Paul and Luke assume the risen Christ actually appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. This would certainly explain Paul’s sudden “about-face,” from persecutor of the church to apostle to the gentiles.
A.
Segal seeks to understand Paul as a Jewish mystic, who more than
once encounters the representation of God (which in Jewish mysticism
could be human or angelic), i.e., the “Glory” (Kavod) of
God, whom he interprets as the risen Christ under the influence
of a Christian community (see 2 Cor 12; see also Acts 16:9-10; 18:9-10;
22:17-18, even though Segal is skeptical about Luke’s historical
accuracy) (Paul the Convert [New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1990] chap. 2). According to Segal, Paul identifies his mystical
experiences as his conversion, even though it was not momentous,
as Luke would have us believe, but took place over a period of time.
Paul’s mysticism led not only to visions of the risen Christ but
a mystical identification with him and a (gradual) transformation
into a being like the risen Christ. This then led him to the
conclusion that all other means of gaining eternal life were ineffectual: only
faith—identification with the risen Christ—begins the process of
transformation, which will culminate in the resurrection of the
body. The parallel to this experience of transformation is justification
(being declared righteous). |
9.2.
Accounts of Paul’s Conversion
There are four accounts of Paul’s conversion: Gal 1:15-17 (from Paul himself); Acts 9:1-19 (Luke relating Paul's experience); Acts 22:2b-16 (Luke relating Paul's telling of his conversion to the crowd in Jerusalem); Acts 26:9-18 (Luke relating Paul's telling of his conversion to Agrippa). There are also allusions to Paul's conversion in Gal 1:11-12; 1 Cor 9:1; 15:8.) The accounts are consistent except possibly for two details. First, it is not clear whether Paul's companions also fell to the ground like Paul or whether they remained standing the whole time. In Acts 26:14, Paul says, “We all fell to the ground,” whereas in Luke account in Acts 9, it is possible to interpret the narrative as implying that only Paul fell to the ground: "He fell to the ground….The men traveling with Paul stood there speechless” (Acts 9:4, 7). The two accounts can be harmonized by arguing that initially all fell to the ground, but only Paul remained on the ground beause only he heard the risen Christ speak. Second, it is uncertain what Paul' s companions saw: “They heard the sound, but did not see anyone” (Acts 9:7); "My companions saw the light" (Acts 22:9). These two accounts can be harmonized by assuming that, whereas everyone present saw the light, only Paul saw and heard the risen Christ after seeing the light.
| Gal
1:15-17 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me in order that I may preach him among the gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
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Acts
9:1-19 Meanwhile,
Saul was still breathing out threats against the Lord’s disciples. He
went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues
in Damascus, in order that, if he found anyone there who belonged
to the Way, he may take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared
Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around
him. He fell to the ground, and heard a voice say to him, “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, lord?” Saul
asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” He replied. “Now
get up, and go to into the city, and you will be told what you must
do.” The men traveling with Paul stood there speechless; they
heard the sound, but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the
ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So
they led him by the hand to Damascus. For three days he was blind,
and did not eat or drink anything. In Damascus there was a disciple
named Ananias….Then Ananias went to the house and entered it.
Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus,
who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent
me in order that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he
could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking
some food, he regained his strength.
|
Acts
22:2b-16 Then Paul said: “:...I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as also the High Priest and the Sanhedrin can testify. I even obtained letters from them to their brothers in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished. About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flash around me. I fell to the ground, and heard a voice say to me, `Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?’ `Who are you, lord?’ I asked. 'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied. My companions saw the light, but did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. 'What shall I do, lord?’ I asked. 'Get up,” the Lord said, 'and go to into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’ My companions led me by the hand into Damascus, because the brilliance of the light had blinded me. A man named Ananias came to see me. He was a devout observer of the Law and a highly respected by all the Jews living there. He stood beside me, and said, 'Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that moment I was able to see him. Then he said to me, 'The God of our fathers has chosen you to know his will and to see the Righteous One and to hear words from his mouth. You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.
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Acts 26:9-18 I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. In my obsession against them I even went to foreign cities to persecute them. On one of these journeys I was going to Damascus with the authority of commissioning of the chief priests. About noon, O King, as I was on the road, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, blazing around me and my companions. We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? Is it hard for you to kick against the goads?’ Then I asked, `Who are you, lord?’ ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting,’ the Lord replied. 'Now get up and stand on your feet. I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen of me and what I will show you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the gentiles. I am sending you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.
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| It is interesting that when he writes of his conversion and call to apostleship, Paul uses biblical allusions (L. Cerfaux, Le chrétien dans la théologie paulinienne (LD 33; Paris: Cerf, 1962) 72-77). He speaks of himself as set apart (aphorizein) (Gal 1:15); this verb is used in LXX to describe the setting apart of something as holy to the Lord (Exod 13:12 [A]; 19:23; 29:26; see also Lev 20:25-26). Paul evidently sees his calling as a type of consecration. He also describes himself as set apart "from my mother's womb" (ek koilias metros mou) (Gal 1:15); the same phrase occurs in LXX Isa 49:1, in which the Servant describes himself as called to his salvation-historical role from before his birth: "From my mother's womb he [Yahweh] called my name" (ek koilias metros mou ekalesen to onoma mou). It is clear that Paul understands his own calling to apostleship to be parallel to the calling of the Servant; Paul sees his salvation-historical role as being Servant-like (Cerfaux, Le chrétien dans la théologie paulinienne, 77-81). In addition, Jeremiah's call to being a prophet is described as having occurred before his birth (Jer 1:5): "Before I formed you in the womb (LXX en koilia) I knew you; before you came forth from your mother (LXX ek metras) I consecrated you: I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." Paul no doubt is implicitly comparing his call to being an apostle to Jeremiah's call. (Possibly, another allusion to the prophet Jeremiah occurs in 1 Cor 9:16-17 = Jer 20:9.)
The phrase "to kick against the goads" was a common metaphorical usage in Greek denoting the difficulty of human beings' opposing the gods (see Euripides Bacchannals 794-95; Aeschylus, Prometheus, 324-25). But, of course, the risen Christ spoke to Paul in Aramaic, so the phrase is either a non-literal translation of the Aramaic using a Greek idiom or the Aramaic equivalent of the phrase was being used in Aramaic circles, having originated in Greek circles or arising independently of the same use in Greek. |
10.
Paul's Call to Apostleship
Paul sees the
revelation that he received as simultaneous with his call to become an
apostle, by which Paul means one who is sent to proclaim the good news
in word and deed. (On Paul's claim to apostleship, see Rom 1:1; 1 Cor
1:1; 9:1-2; 2 Cor 1:1; Gal 1:1; Eph 1:1; Col 1:1; 1 Thess 2:7; 1 Tim 1:1;
2:7; 2 Tim 1:1.) In particular, Paul saw himself as the apostle to the
gentiles (Rom 11:13; Gal 1:16; 2:2, 7; 2 Tim 1:11; see also Rom 15:16,
18; Eph 3:1, 8).(19)
In addition, Luke has Paul report that the risen Christ informs
him that "I will rescue you from your own people and from the gentiles.
I am sending you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light,
and from the power of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me"
(Acts 26:17-18). Jesus’ twelve disciples are sometimes called apostles
in the gospels (Mark 13:14 = Matt 10:2 = Luke 6:13; Mark 6:30 = Luke 9:10;
Luke 17:5; 22:15; 24:10). When the apostles were choosing a replacement
for Judas, Peter states, “Therefore it is necessary to choose one of the
men who have been with us the whole time the Lord Jesus went in and out
among us, beginning from John's baptism to the time when Jesus was taken
up from us. For one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection"
(Acts 1:21-22). The implication is that only someone who could
serve as a witness to Jesus could be an apostle (see Acts 4:33). (In
fact, in the Book of Acts, Luke uses the term "apostle" of such
men and never of Paul.) Apparently, the definition of an apostle was expanded
at some point to include men who were not eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry,
so that Paul could be included as an apostle in the more general sense
given above (see also James [Gal 1:19; 1 Cor 15:7]; Barnabas
[Acts 14:4, 14; 1 Cor 9:5-6] and Andronicus and Junias [Rom 16:7] and
even the "super-apostles" in Corinth [2 Cor 11:5; 12:11).(20) Paul
insists that the risen Christ revealed himself to him, as to the other
apostles before him; this experience was, for him, a warrant for his claim
to have apostolic authority equal to that of the original apostles and
James, the brother of Jesus (Gal 1:15-17; 1 Cor 15:7-8). He sees
his call to apostleship as independent of human authority (see Gal 2:6).
As apostle to
the gentiles, Paul describes his role in priestly terms (Rom 15:15-16).(21)
He writes that he is "Christ Jesus' minister to the gentiles"
(leitourgos Christou Iesou eis ta ethnê) (The nouns leitourgos,
leitourgia and the verb leitourgein are used of priestly
service in LXX). As a minister Paul serves the gospel of God as a priest
(hierougounta to euaggelion tou theou), and the purpose of his
"priestly" service is to bring an acceptable offering consisting
of gentiles (hê prosphora tôn ethnôn) (see Rom
12:1-2, in which Paul instructs his readers to make themselves a "spiritual
sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is their reasonable worship").
Gentiles are metaphorically a sacrificial offering that has been set apart
for God; the Holy Spirit sanctifies them and thereby makes them acceptable
as an offering (see also 1 Cor 9:13-14; Phil 4:18). Paul also refers to
himself as serving as an ambassador (presbeuein), a "mediateur
entre Dieu et les païens, officiellement delégué pour
leur offrir la paix au nom de Dieu" (2 Cor 5:20; Eph 6:19-20).(22)
Footnotes
(1) C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC; London: A & C Black, 1973) 293; R. P. Martin, 2 Corinthians [WBC; Waco, TX: Word, 1986] 375.
(2) See J. Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (London: SCM, 1969), 227, 278-79, 287-88.
(3) H. Windisch, Der zweiter Korintherbrief (9 ed.; KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924) 350-51; M. Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991) 25-26.
(4) W. Ramsey, The Cities of St. Paul (1907; repr. Grand Rapids, Baker, 1979) 169-80.
(5) Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul, 6.
(6) For more information of Roman citizenship, see A.N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).
(7) F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), 359-60.
(8) H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 278 n. 139.
(9) On the Pharisaic origin of Psalms of Solomon, see G. Maier, Mensch und freier Wille (WUNT 12; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1971) 282-300; E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (ed. G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Goodman; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1987) 3/1.194-95; J. Schüpphaus, Die Psalmen Salomos: Ein Zeugnis Jerusalemer Theologie und Frömmigkeit in der Mitte des vorchristlichen Jahrhunderts (ALGHJ 7; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 127-37; S. Holm-Nielsen, Psalmen Salomos (JSHRZ IV/2; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1977) 51-112; M. Winninge, Sinners and the Righteous (ConB 26; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1995) 141-80. J. O’Dell argues that Psalms of Solomon originate among the Chasidim generally and not from the Pharisees in particular ("The Religious Background of the Psalms of Solomon," RQ 3 [1961–62] 241–57. Sanders likewise is reluctant to identify the group responsible for Psalms of Solomon as the Pharisees (Judaism. Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE [Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992] 452-57). K. Atkinson also hypothesizes that the Jewish group responsible for the production and redaction of the Psalms of Solomon is otherwise unknown ("Towards a Redating of the Psalms of Solomon: Implication for Understanding the Sitz im Leben of an Unknown Jewish Sect" JSP 17 [1998] 95-112). See also P. N. Franklyn, "The Cutlic and Pious Climax of Eschatology in the Psalms of Solomon," JSJ 18 (1987) 1-17./
(10) G. F. Moore, Judaism (2 vols.; Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1927) 1.56-92; J. Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1973); R. Travers Herford, The Pharisees (1924; repr. Boston: Beacon Press, 1962; J. Kampen, The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism. A Study of 1 and 2 Maccabees (SCSS 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); J. Neusner, From Politics to Piety The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1979); E. Rivkin, A Hidden Revoluton: The Pharisees’ Search for the Kingdom Within (Nashville: Abingdon, 1978); E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE – 66 CE, 380-451; A. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988); E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 2.388-403; E.; S. Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority (Lund: Gleerup, 1978); D. Lührmann, "Paul and the Pharisaic Tradition," JSNT 36 (1989) 75-94.
(11) A. Baumgarten argues that the Hebrew behind the name Pharisee is paroshim, "specifiers," from their reputation for being expert biblical interpreters ("Korban and the Pharisaic Paradosis," JANES 16-17 [1984-85] 5-17; id., "The Name of the Pharisees," JBL 102 [1983] 411-28.
(12) See D. Schwarz, "Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees," JSJ 14 (1983) 157-71.
(13) Contrary to S. Mason, "Was Josephus a Pharisee? A Re-Examination of Life," JJS 40 (1989) 31-45.
(14) Neusner, From Politics to Piety.
(15) See Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority, 88-89.
(16) See L. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Doubleday, 1995) 249-52.
(17) M. Hengel, The Atonement (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 44; S. Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel (2d. ed.; WUNT, 2s. 4; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1984) 45.
(18) See Kim, The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, 100-36; J. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998) 346-54.
(19) On this topic, see J. Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (London: SCM, 1959); K. Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967); S. Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel, 57; F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eedrmans, 1977).
(20) L. Cerfaux, Le chrétien dans la théologie paulinienne (LD 33; Paris: Cerf, 1962) 99-117.
(21) On Paul’s post-conversion relation to Judaism, see S. Porter, "Was Paul a Good Jew? Fundamental Issues in Current Debate," Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries (ed. S. Porter; B. Pearson; JSNTSup 192; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000) 148-74.
(22) Cerfaux, Le chrétien dans la théologie paulinienne, 91.
