Corpus-Paul

[yonder moynihan gillihan <ymgillih AT midway.uchicago.edu>]

Anders,
The question of whether Paul is a "nice guy" seems sentimental to me, and
aimed at addressing concerns of modern Christians.  To be a "nice guy"
today seems to mean to be respectful and respectable, to deliver a message
with warmth and openness and sincerity so that its recipients will feel
cared for.  Modern response to a "nice" preacher's sermon is a response to
the preacher, an emotional reply to a person whose proclamation may not be
as important as the evenness of his demeanor.

Did Paul care whether people liked him?  Did he try to be "nice" to win a
personal response to his proclamation?  The word "nice" with its modern
sentimentality seems terribly anachronistic; to look for evidence of a
"nice guy" in Paul's letters seems a strange historical project.

Yet I wonder if you might have a point.  I have always read Paul as a
figure claiming personal authority; he demanded respect not on the basis
of personality, but because he proclaimed the Cross, God's power to save.
His urgent task demanded boldness, truth, not sentimentality.  But at the
same time he takes care to stress the importance of kindness, gentleness,
living at peace, and so on.  It seems likely to me that some found him
impossibly polemical and insistent, not "nice" at all, such as those to
whom he wrote Gal, but the grateful tone of Phil and the pastoral concern
of 1 Thess indicates some personal warmth; likewise Paul's instructions
about eating and observing holy days in Rom 14 looks like evidence of
personal sensitivity, response to individuals' particular personalities
and experiences.  Is this "nice"?  I would guess so, and he seems to care
that others act "nicely" too.

The significance of the question, "Was Paul a 'nice guy'?" remains for me,
however, ultimately a modern theological one; its origin is in our
individual reactions to a person we've imaginatively reconstructed, and
then attempted to decide whether we "like" this person.  In a way I think
the question turns a modern response to the claims of an ancient
proclamation into a response to the imagined personality behind those
letters.  Is it easier to put aside Paul's claims if we can write him off
as "not nice", just as we might ignore some modern preacher's sermon?
What would be the theological benefit of reconstructing his personality as
"nice"?  Should someone concerned with the task of reconstructing
Christian origins, without committment to contemporary responses to Paul,
engage your question?

Just some thoughts.

Yonder Gillihan
grad student, NT/ECL
The University of Chicago