“In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

Thomas Jefferson

Paul, Friend of the Romans 2

Saul and Barnabas in Antioch
At Lystra is Mistaken for Mercury
Summoned to Jerusalem and James’s Judgement

Abstract

Saul had gone to Tarsus which was less than 100 miles from Antioch across the Mediterranean. He was telling stories about a new dying and rising god, like Attis with whom the gentiles were familiar, which were gladly received. On the law of Moses, Acts says James’s decrees had been delivered, so Paul, who must have had copies, merely had to produce them to show that circumcision was not mandatory if James had accepted abrogation of the Law. The decrees must have said the opposite of Luke’s pretence—the law had to be obeyed. That Paul circumcised Timothy proves James’s real decree. Paul acted in full harmony with the law, even though Luke claimed the law—and so circumcision—was not obligatory for gentiles. The career of Paul of Tarsus.

Paul Summoned to Jerusalem, and James’s Judgement

Christian commentators have to admit that there are “historical problems” in Acts 15:1-3. Luke confesses that Paul was defying the Jerusalem church in baptizing gentiles who had not been circumcised as Jews. These gentiles must have been uncircumcised since otherwise there could have been no problem, but who were the Judaizers from Jerusalem and what right had they to deny the baptism of uncircumcised gentiles when the conversion of Cornelius without circumcision had already legitimized it? This proves that the conversion of Cornelius was interpolated.

And certain men which came down from Judaea taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.

The question of who the “certain men” from Jerusalem are is not answered but, to have any authority, they must have been Nazarenes and must have spoken for James the Just and the appointed apostles of Jesus. They tell the Christians of Antioch that gentiles could not be saved without baptism and they could not be baptized unless they had been circumcised as Jews.

The forty years of the cosmic battle of Good and Evil had not yet been completed. The Nazarenes were still expecting the coming of the kingdom of God on earth just as Jesus had promised. But only circumcised Jews could be accepted for repentance and baptism. Righteous gentiles could only later be called.

It is impossible to believe that anyone other than illegally baptized gentiles would have contradicted the officers of the Jerusalem church, but, whoever they were, they were led by Paul and Barnabas and the dissension between them and the visitors was severe. The Greek of Acts 15:2 implies strife and disunity. It is also impossible to believe that Paul and his converts would have bothered what the Jerusalem church dictated if they had been the majority in Antioch.

They determined that Paul and Barnabas, and certain other of them, should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question.

Paul could hardly have expected a good reception in Jerusalem and he must only have gone there because he had no option. Effectively, he was taken back to Jerusalem as a prisoner. In Acts 15:2, it was not merely “determined” or “appointed” that they should return but “ordered”. In Acts 15:3, they were “brought by the church” to Jerusalem, suggesting the journey was not voluntary. The Western Text supports the impression that the evangelists were ordered to go. Honest translators would use the correct translation of the Greek—they were “escorted” as if by a guard. The supposed joy brought to the Phœnicians was a puff to disguise the truth.

Christians suppose that James became the head of the church in Jerusalem because the appointed apostles had been obliged to flee when James of Zebedee had been killed in the reign of Agrippa. However, here they are all gathered together in Jerusalem only a few years later with no hint of persecution. James was probably always the successor to Jesus.

At Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas explain themselves but who should oppose them but “Pharisees who believed”. Does Luke mean converted Pharisees or is he using Pharisees as a pejorative term?—hypocrites!

If they actually were converted Pharisees, were they members of the Jerusalem church as well as Pharisees? It seems likely that the meaning is that these were not literally Pharisees but simply those who still upheld the law in the Jerusalem church—people like James the Just—and that the term “Pharisee” is used here as a term of abuse.

Whatever they were, Peter stands up and defends Paul, according to Luke, speaking in mock-biblical language. Then James stands to make his speech of judgement, speaking in Aramaic as one might expect but hinted at by Luke giving Peter his Aramaic name Cephas. James’s biblical quotations are not from the Hebrew bible but seemingly from the Septuagint or possibly versions like some of those at Qumran which were used as sources for the Septuagint.

The judgement of James is bizarre because it seems to have nothing particularly to do with the complaint—it says nothing about circumcision. Indeed, it is made to seem as though James concedes the point, provided that a few lesser requirements of the Mosaic law dealing with food taboos and table fellowship between Jews and gentile converts are honoured by the gentiles.

In view of the fact that Paul is again castigated by the church and made to undergo a ritual cleansing later in the story, it is impossible not to conclude that Luke or an editor has disguised the truth here. James did not merely uphold the law in respect of some food taboos but he upheld it fully, every jot and tittle, including the need for circumcision as a sign of acceptance into the Jewish religion. The Jerusalem church was adamantly Jewish still.

The letter of judgement from the apostles and the elder brethren—again implying that elders, which might equate with fathers, was an Essene rank (at Acts 20:17,28 they are also overseers or bishops, proving that it is a translation of the Essene word “mebaqqer”)—refers to men who had “subverted their souls” with no “commandment” to do so from Jerusalem. For some curious reason, Christians can only see these words as referring to the Judaizers of Acts 15:1 when those men were messengers from the Jerusalem church. In logic, the “subverters of souls” could only have been Paul and Barnabas, the ones who had just been hauled before the Jerusalem officials, yet the letter is made to praise them and to confirm the instruction of Paul except for a few taboos.

Reliable men, Judas and Silas, described (Acts 15:32) as prophets, an Essene description of themselves, are appointed to accompany Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch with the judgement, the implication being that it would not otherwise be honestly delivered by the two heroes, yet if Paul’s instruction had all but been confirmed, why were these reliable men needed to ensure that the judgement was delivered? This is tortuous and impossible to understand because editors have tried to reverse the decision of James.

Note that one of the companions, Judas, is surnamed Barsabbas, a possible disguise for Barabbas, suggesting that Barabbas was an Essene title. If so Judas Barsabbas might have been a successor to Jesus in the Essene movement—a Nasi, perhaps James’s designated successor.

On their return, Luke tells us the brethren of Antioch rejoice to hear the judgement of Judas and Silas and then send the two back to Jerusalem while Paul and Barnabas continue their work. Paul and Barnabas then fall out—extremely bitterly in the Greek—over John Mark, the supposed author of Mark’s gospel who Paul rejects for reasons we are not told but must, in the circumstances, be because John Mark wanted to uphold the decision of the church whereas Paul intended to disregard it.

So Paul goes off to Cilicia with Silas, a curiosity because Silas was introduced as one of the envoys of the Jerusalem church who had apparently returned. In fact, Silas is not a Jewish name, it is short for Silvanus and so he is called by Paul in his letters. There is no doubt therefore that Silas was not an envoy of the Jerusalem church. Why should two envoys have been necessary? If Silas returned from Jerusalem with the party, it seems likely that he had travelled there with them. Otherwise he has been falsely named by Luke or an editor as the equal of Judas Barsabbas to legitimize his work by making it seem as though Paul did much of his work accompanied by an envoy of the Jerusalem church.

In his epistles, Paul never alludes to James’s favourable decision although he raises the question of circumcision in Galatians in relation to Titus and apparently got agreement from Peter, James and John. Later, however, James seems to change his mind and consequently Peter and Barnabas do too. This is confirmation that Paul and Barnabas fell out over this issue, though in Acts it is told only in relation to John Mark whereas in Galatians the truth is more transparent. All of these problems seem to stem from the desire of Luke to reverse the decision of James, and to make Paul seem acceptable to the Jerusalem church.

Why then does Luke mention the quarrel between Barnabas and Paul? He could have omitted it and left the two parting company for apparently practical reasons. The answer, as it often is, is that the quarrel must have been well known or even legendary among the early gentile Christians and could not therefore be ignored. Luke had to explain it away as nothing to do with the law of Moses. Having sent back the envoys, Paul wants to ignore the ruling but Mark and Barnabas vehemently oppose him. Paul needs a new companion and chooses Silas who Luke then pretends was one of the envoys.

Acts and Galatians are incompatible regarding Paul’s visits to Jerusalem. There are three in Acts up to this time but only two in Galatians because the famine visit (Acts 11:30) is omitted. We can discount the original visit to Jerusalem shortly after his conversion. So the visit in Galatians with Barnabas and Titus when circumcision arose must have been this one described in Acts 15. In Galatians, as in Acts, Peter, James and John accept Paul’s gentile mission. Peter’s speech in Acts 15 must have been unacceptable to James, disparaging the law as a yoke and it assumes that the story of Cornelius was well known and had been God’s permission to baptize gentiles.

In James’s speech, we get a quotation from Amos 9:11-12 which proves to be highly significant in this context and in linking the Jerusalem church with the Essenes. Christians see in the reference to the “tabernacle of David ”being built again (Acts 15:16) either a metaphor for the building of the Christian, universal kingdom of God or the resurrection of the body of Christ. In fact, the Damascus Document explains it precisely and the Essene interpretations fits perfectly here. Toward the end of column 7 of the Damascus Document is the self-same quotation from Amos 9:11:

The books of the law are the tabernacle of the king. As God said: I will raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen.

Curiously this seems to match the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the scriptures, rather than the Hebrew version, but we now realize that scriptural texts were not as standardized in Second Temple times as they became under the Masoretes. The Septuagint, which used to be considered a sloppy work, is now appreciated as containing translations of alternative texts, some of which have turned up in the caves of Qumran.

So for James to quote “I will raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen”, is to assert that the law must be upheld. James is stating unequivocally that it is wrong to admit gentiles into the church contrary to the law. They had to accept the law fully to seek God’s kingdom, not the exact opposite. It is beyond a coincidence that this pesher reading in the scrolls is so apt.

There is no mistaking it and, indeed, in the original is a reference to “remnant of Edom” which is interpreted here in typical Essene fashion as “remnant of men”, in which Edom is read as Adam, an obvious allusion to the Elect who regarded themselves as God’s remnant. The scriptural reading echoes the eschatological belief of the Essenes that the Jews would dispossess Edom, meaning the gentiles. Acts 15:21 confirms James’s interpretation:

For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.

James points out that there were Jews everywhere who obeyed the law and who could hardly have taken kindly to the church simply cancelling it. Christians like to read Acts 15:19:

Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God,

as meaning that gentiles would not be troubled with the need for circumcision when it plainly means that they should not be troubled with any doubt of its necessity. Those who had turned to God would not be troubled by circumcision as a requirement. Those who had been baptized by Paul illegally could not turn to God until they had accepted the requirements of God’s own law.

The Christian interpretation that James was simply holding up token laws of table fellowship is confounded by one of the laws he upheld being that of abstention from fornication, a strange requirement for table fellowship.

But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.

Curiously some scholars say that the Christian love feasts did indeed degenerate into orgies and that was one of the reasons the Greeks and Romans tried to suppress them. If this had happened at such an early date in the history of Christianity, it is impossible to believe that James would have been so liberal as simply to offer a few rules about it. He would have wanted to disassociate the church from such behaviour.

In 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Paul confesses that some Christians had not been properly instructed, believing that abrogation of the law meant abrogation of any civil law including the laws of the empire. This must have been true or Paul would not have reported it. It was another reason why the Roman authorities distrusted Christians. Since it is far from impossible that Paul was an agent provocateur for the Romans, these are telling facts.

Paul circumcises Timothy (Acts 16:3), surely more proof of James’s real decision and proof too that that Paul dared not do otherwise, either because he felt under scrutiny or because Timothy’s mother was a Nazarene (though his father was a Greek). In Acts 16:4, the decrees of James were delivered so it would have been sufficient for Paul, who must have had copies, merely to produce them to show that circumcision was not necessary, if Luke has told the truth. Again, the only conclusion is that the decrees said the opposite of Luke’s pretence—the decrees of James said that the law had to be obeyed fully. Circumcision was therefore still necessary. Paul is shown as acting in full harmony with the Jerusalem church even though Luke has just spent some time showing that the law and therefore circumcision is not obligatory for gentiles.

The explanation given by Luke is that everyone knew that Timothy’s father was a Greek, whereas the sensible argument was that his mother was a Jew and wanted him treated accordingly. But that too offers problems because Timothy was not a baby. Why then had he not already been circumcised? Possibly the mother was a proselyte and the father a godfearer, but then it is hard to understand why Paul did not spare Timothy from the danger and discomfort of an adult circumcision when he had James’s authority to do so in his scrip. The meaning of the explanation that Timothy’s father was a Greek must be that Paul was indeed under scrutiny, Timothy was the first son of a gentile requiring circumcision and everyone was watching carefully to see that he did it and did not try to exempt Timothy because his father was a gentile.

Again the question arises, “Why mention it?” And again the answer is that it was well known that Timothy had been circumcised because it had effectively been a test case, but Luke tries to make out that Paul had been liberal about it for incoherent reasons. Some Christians claim that Paul’s circumcision of Timothy proves his innocence of the charges later placed before him of flouting the law of Moses, but Paul’s flouting was obviously commonplace and one apparent acceptance of the law can hardly prove his previous innocence or his innocence in general.

Acts 16:14-15 is an illustration of the success had by the first evangelists in converting godfearers. Lydia was a woman who “worshipped god”, implying that she was not a Jew but a godfearer. Her name is either a mistake or it was her nickname because Luke explains that she came from the town of Thyatira which was in the province of Lydia. Women, who had no frightful operation of circumcision to undergo, were much more ready to associate with the Jewish religion than men and they provided ripe fruit for the Christian evangelists. Note that Paul uses the Nazarene method of baptism here, continuing the custom of John the Baptist and, we infer, Jesus. There is no laying on of hands.

The girl with the spirit of divination was the equivalent of the modern day fortune teller or astrologer. She was evidently being used by her masters (Acts 16:16,19) to tell the fortunes of the crowds gathering around the missionaries. In the second century AD, the Delphic Oracle enjoyed a revival, though it had never entirely gone out of fashion just like astrology today, and there were possibly the beginnings of a new fad for divination at this time. The word for “spirit of divination” in Greek is “python”, a reference to the dragon killed by Apollo when he took the oracle from Mother Earth. It seems the evangelists saw her off probably with chastisement, thus annoying her masters and inviting their retribution. Note that the girl is made to speak of the “way of salvation”.

There follows a fantasy meant to parallel the incident concerning Peter in Acts 12 concerning a miraculous escape from prison, with a hint of the messianic meal which became the Eucharist;

And when he had brought them into his house, he set meat before them, and rejoiced, believing in God with all his house.
Acts 16:34

Note that, in 1 Thessalonians 2:2, there is no mention of this absurdly contrived miracle. Then we get back to the fact of the narrative. The evangelists had simply been held in the jail overnight, possibly as a punishment but equally possibly to protect them from the mob which dragged them to the magistrates in Acts 16:19,22.

According to the previous fiction, the heroes are already free but the sense here is that they are still jailed. Paul is indignant that they have been publicly flogged though they are Roman citizens, proving that the flogging could not have been official, if indeed there had been one. They must have been beaten by the mob. The truth is clear enough. They were saved from the mob by the magistrates, and told to clear off the next day. Incidentally, this proves that Silas was not the emissary from Jerusalem. Here he is a Roman citizen, and we can be sure the Jerusalem church would not have tolerated that.

Paul was eager to use his status as a Roman citizen elsewhere in Acts so why did he not declare it here? Christians fatuously say it was so that he could allow God to save him with a miracle, convert the jailer and humiliate the magistrates, conveniently ignoring Jesus’s dictum, “Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God”. Plainly it is utter nonsense and the reason why the magistrates locked them up to preserve them from the mob then sent them on their way was because Paul and Silas had in truth played the citizenship card.

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Last uploaded: 19 April, 2008.