Corpus-Paul

["Sakari H�kkinen" <sakari.hakkinen AT sci.fi>]

Epiphanius wrote in Panarion 30,16 (Transl. by F. Williams):
... [The Ebionites] then claim that [Paul] was Greek and the
son of Greek mother and father, but that he had gone up to
Jerusalem, stayed a while, and desired to marry a daughter
of the high priest. He therefore became a proselyte and was
circumcised. But since he still could not get that sort of
girl he became angry, and wrote against circumcision, and
the Sabbath and Legislation.

To my knowledge no scholar, except Hyam Maccoby (The
Mythmaker. Paul and the Invention of Christianity, 1986),
regards this report valuable when examining the life of
Paul. According to Maccoby: "The picture of Paul as a
disappointed lover is a typical creation of the folk
imagination, yet it is not entirely off the mark. Paul was
indeed in love, not with the High Priest's daughter, but
with Judaism, of which the High Priest was the symbol (if
not the exponent). It was Paul's frustrated love-affair with
Judaism that created Pauline Christianity."

Hahhahhaa :)


Sakari Hakkinen, PhD
University of Helsinki
Department of Biblical Studies
sakari.hakkinen AT evl.fi
http://www.helsinki.fi/teol/hyel/henkilo/henkilo.html