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  • From: Robert M Schacht <bobschacht AT juno.com>
  • To: corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: justification: a pre-Pauline doctrine?
  • Date: Mon, 21 Jun 1999 23:59:12 -0700




On Thu, 17 Jun 1999 16:12:06 -0700 "Jon Peter" <jnp AT home.com> writes:
>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... 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.
>>

Jon replied:
>
>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) ...
>(6) ...
>(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.

Which is to say you think Paul didn't get it from anyone (but in a
vision?-- see below)

>He meets with Peter and James. Implicitly, the latter
>two
>accept Paul's PISTIS Gospel and recognize it. ... 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.
>

There is another solution to this, based on your enumeration and
Jeffrey's original summation: That Paul must have got it from either
Peter or James. They seem to be the only available sources, and are
always on hand for the heavy duty stuff. James letter shows familiarity
with and interest in the issue, but the Petrine letters I don't know
about. Of course, these are all considered later than Paul's letters, but
that doesn't mean that they don't carry earlier ideas.

The whole issue seems like one that Paul, Peter & James probably
discussed quite a bit in the meetings enumerated above, but of course I
can't prove that.

Bob
Robert M. Schacht, Ph.D.
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ

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