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  • From: "Jon Peter" <jnp AT home.com>
  • To: "Corpus Paulinum" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1999 16:12:06 -0700


Jeffrey wrote:

>
> I still feel as if my question is being misunderstood. I am not denying
that Paul
> "moved away from" the notion of justification by works and in its place
emphasized
> justification by/through imitation of the faithfulness displayed by Jesus
(you can see
> what side of the PISTIS CRISTOU debate I come down on). I am only asking
whether
> within the early Christian movement Paul was *the first* to make this
move. It seems
> to me that if we take seriously the evidence from Gal. regarding the
grounds on which
> Paul criticized Peter/Cephas in the Antioch incident, the answer would be
*no*. Peter,
> Paul seems to note, was, before the incident, not only already aware of
the (from the
> Christian perspective) "true" grounds of justification; but there is no
hint from Paul
> that Peter's awareness of this notion was something *derived* from Paul,
as Paul could
> claim here if it were.
>

Paul's sequence of events in Gal.1-2 seems to resolve the issue, I think:

(1) He receives the Gospel of Christ for Gentiles, in a direct vision.
(2) For 3 yrs he delays going to Jerusalem to discuss this
(3) At last he visits, staying with Peter for 15 days and seeing no one else
but James.
(4) Fourteen years pass. Paul now receives a revelation (apokalupsis)
indicating he is to go to Jerusalem again. He takes along Barnabas and
Titus. He meets with the apparent Jewish-Christian leaders in private,
telling them his Gospel for Gentiles. He is apprehensive about whether he
has been laboring under false beliefs concerning Gentile inclusion by faith
alone. But, following the meeting, everything seems okay to him because the
leaders don't require Titus to be circumcised (i.e., they don't need to obey
Torah).
(5) What had caused Paul's worries were false brothers who had infiltrated,
making Paul suppose that their aim was to pressure him to do circumcisions
("make us slaves" Gal 2.4). Implicitly, Paul reported these events and fears
to the Jerusalem leaders. He is reassured.
(6) The Jersusalem leaders who seemed "important" didn't alter Paul's
Gospel-content at all. On the contrary, they became convinced of Paul's
divine mission. The meeting ends in accord.
(7) Peter visits Paul in Antioch and his behavior contradicts the previous
understanding.
(8) In Gal 2.14-15 Paul explains the lesson in all this -- the Faith Gospel
[pistis Iesous Christos] (v 15)

The answer to Jeffrey's question is, that Paul received his PISTIS Gospel
independently. He meets with Peter and James. Implicitly, the latter two
accept Paul's PISTIS Gospel and recognize it. I infer this acceptance from
Paul's statements about subsequent events. (He is disturbed by Circumcision
Party false brothers. He then returns to Jerusalem to confirm that all is
still as before, in terms of the PISTIS Gospel.) I also infer that the
initial acceptance of Paul is due to Peter's recognition that Paul's PISTIS
Gospel is true and correct. Logically, Peter received it from Jesus in
person before Paul received it in a vision.

Best regards,

Jon





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