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  • From: "David C. Hindley" <dhindley AT csi.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Sun, 20 Jun 1999 10:36:54 -0400


On Wed 6/15/99, "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
said:

>>Inspired by Jonathan Ryder's question regarding what works exist on the
issue of what in Paul is "pre-Pauline", I have been reading the very
book I recommended to him, A.M. Hunter's _Paul and His Predecessors_.
An up shot of this is that I have been struck by something Hunter says
with regard to the question of whether or not the "doctrine" of
justification was something which Paul's *peculium*. Hunter argues that
it was NOT. His grounds for his conclusion are four considerations:

It is agreed that in Romans Paul often appeals to
Christian beliefs shared in common by the Roman church and by
himself. Must not the doctrine of 'justification of faith'
which bulks so large in this epistle have been familiar to
them?
Both the standard Old Testament proof texts for the
doctrine (Gen. xv.16 and Hab. ii.4) are probably common
Christian *testimonia*.
In Gal. ii.16 Paul can appeal to Peter on this very
common ground. 'Knowing that a man cannot be justified by
works of the law, but only through faith in Jesus, we also put
our trust in Jesus Christ.' Let us give this passage its full
weight: 'You and I, Cephas and Paul, ' says Paul, 'are at one
in this doctrine of justification by faith. We agree that a
man is accepted by God not for his works of law but for his
faith in Christ.' (Cf. Peter's speech, Acts xv. 7-11.)
When we remember too that the germs of he doctrine are in
the gospels (Luke xviii. 10 ff. and Luke xv. 11 ff.) we may
well doubt the commonly accepted view that this doctrine is
stamped with the Pauline hallmark


Now what ever may be made of each of these arguments or the assumptions
behind them, they nevertheless point up something that I had not really
given much thought to (possibly because of not reading widely enough),
namely, that "justification" is historically NOT strictly a Pauline
doctrine. It is not original to Paul.

So two questions. Is Hunter's thesis (which he notes was adumbrated by
Weiss in his _History of Primitive Christianity_, p. 231) that the
justification is not "Pauline" sound?

Second, if it is sound, to whom or to what do we attribute its origin?<<

Jeffery,

This is a good question. It does appear as though Paul assumed that he and
Cephas shared a belief that Jews are justified by their faith, not by adhering
to the law. However, -something- has to have been different enough about
Paul's position to make it stand apart.

Paul uses the phrase "my gospel" at least three times (since I only searched
the RSV for this simple phrase, there could be other passages that could be so
translated which the RSV did not):

RSV Romans 2:16 " ... on that day when, according to my
gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus."

RSV Romans 16:25 "Now to him who is able to strengthen
you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus
Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which
was kept secret for long ages ... "

RSV 2 Timothy 2:8 "Remember Jesus Christ, risen from
the dead, descended from David, as preached in my
gospel ... "

I wonder whether the peculiarity was in extending this doctrine to Gentiles,
without requiring their circumcision. The bone of contention could be in the
fact that the covenant with Abram required circumcision, and Abraham did obey
that provision. Paul seems to be saying that two covenants were actually made
here: a literal one with Abraham, in which God provided him with a physical
son and Abraham responded by adopting circumcision, and another (allegorical?)
one in which Abraham's "children" are those who follow in his footsteps and
believe in God's promises. In the latter, the justification was a free gift
and not contingent upon an act. Paul's opponents could say, like the epistle
of James does, that the work (in this case, of accepting circumcision) is the
confirmation of the faith, since the promises were originally contingent upon
Abraham's adoption of circumcision.

Sorry that is a little rough.

Dave Hindley
Cleveland, Ohio, USA





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