The Origin of Paul's Religion

By John Gresham Machen

This investigation may be divided into three parts, although the three parts will be found to overlap at many points. Three fundamental elements in Paul's religion have been derived from Greco-oriental syncretism: first, the complex of ideas connected with the obtaining of salvation; second, the sacraments; third, the Christology and the work of Christ in redemption.

The first of the three divisions just enumerated is connected especially with the name of R. Reitzenstein. Reitzenstein lays great stress upon the lexical method of study; it may be proved, he believes, that Paul used terms which were derived from Hellenistic mystical religion, and with the terms went the ideas. The ideas, he admits, were not taken over without modification, but even after the Pauline modifications are subtracted, enough is thought to remain in order to show that the mystery religions exerted an important influence upon Paul.

Thus Reitzenstein attempts to exhibit in the Pauline Epistles a technical vocabulary derived from the Hellenized mystery religions. This supposed technical vocabulary embraces especially the terms connected with "knowledge" and "Spirit."

In the mystical religion of Paul’s day, Reitzenstein says, “gnosis” (knowledge) did not mean knowledge acquired by processes of investigation or reason, but the knowledge that came by immediate revelation from a god. Such immediate revelation was given, in the mystery cults, by the mystic vision which formed a part of the experience of initiation; in the philosophizing derivatives of the mystery cults, like the type of piety which is attested in Hermes Trismegistus, the revelation could be divorced from any external acts and connected with the mere reading of a book. But in any case, "gnosis" was not regarded as an achievement of the intellect; it was an experience granted by divine favor.

The man who had received such favor was exalted far above ordinary humanity; indeed he was already deified.

This conception of gnosis, Reitzenstein believes, is the conception which is found in the Pauline Epistles; gnosis according to Paul was a gift of God, an experience produced by the divine Spirit. In the case of Paul, Reitzenstein continues, the experience was produced through a vision of the risen Christ. That vision had changed the very nature of Paul. It is true, Paul avoids the term "deification"; he does not say, in accordance with Hellenistic usage, that he had ceased to be a man and had become God. This limitation was required by his Jewish habits of thought. But he does say that through his vision he was illumined and received “glory.” Thus, although the term deification is avoided, the idea is present. As one who has received gnosis, Paul regards himself as being beyond the reach of human judgments, and is not interested in tradition that came from other Christians. In short, according to Reitzenstein, Paul was a true "gnostic."

But this conclusion is reached only by doing violence to the plain meaning of the Epistles. “Gnosis” in the early Church (including Paul), as Von Harnack well observes, is not a technical term; it is no more a technical term than is, for example, "wisdom." In 1 Cor. xii. 8 it appears, not by itself, but along with many other spiritual gifts of widely diverse nature.

Gnosis, therefore, does not stand in that position of prominence which it ought to occupy if Reitzenstein's theory were correct. It is, indeed, according to Paul, important; and it is a direct gift from God. But what reason is there to have recourse to Hellenistic mystery religions in order to explain either its importance or its nature? Another explanation is found much nearer at hand - namely, in the Old Testament. The possibility of Old Testament influence in Paul does not have to be established by any elaborate arguments, and is not opposed by his own testimony. On the contrary, he appeals to the Old Testament again and again in his Epistles. And the Old Testament contains all the elements of his conception of the knowledge of God. Even the Greek noun "gnosis" occurs in the Septuagint (though with comparative infrequency) ; but what is far more important is that the idea is expressed countless times by the verb. Let it not be said that the Septuagint is a Hellenistic book, and that therefore if the Septuagint idea of the knowledge of God affords the basis for Pauline teaching that does not disprove the influence of the Hellenistic mystery religions. For in its rendering of the passages dealing with the knowledge of God, whatever may be said of other matters, the Septuagint is transmitting faithfully the meaning of the Hebrew text. Knowledge of God in the Hebrew Old Testament is something far more than a mere intellectual achievement. It is the gift of God, and it involves the entire emotional nature.

But may it not be objected that the Pauline conception transcends that of the Old Testament in that in Paul the knowledge of God produces a transformation of human nature-the virtual deification of man? This question must be answered in the negative. Undoubtedly the Pauline conception does transcend that of the Old Testament, but not in the way which is here supposed. The intimate relation between the believer and the risen Christ, according to Paul, goes far beyond anything that was possible under the old dispensation. It involves a fuller, richer, more intimate knowledge. But the experience in which Paul saw the risen Christ near Damascus was not an end in itself, as it would have been in the milieu of the mystery religions; it was rather a means to an end. It was the divinely appointed means by which Paul was convinced of an historical fact, the resurrection of Jesus, and was led to appropriate the benefits of that fact. Thus, as Oepke has well observed, Paul does not expect his converts all to see Christ, or even to have experiences like that which is described in 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. It is sufficient for them to receive the historical account of Christ's redeeming work, through the testimony of Paul and of the other witnesses. That account, transmitted by ordinary word of mouth, is a sufficient basis for faith; and through faith comes the new life. At this point is discovered an enormous difference between Paul and the mystery religions. In the mystery religions everything led up to the mystic vision; without that mystic vision there was no escape from the miseries of the old life. But according to Paul, the mighty change was produced by the acceptance of a simple story, an account of what had happened only a few years before, when Jesus died and rose again. From the acceptance of that story there proceeds a new knowledge, a gnosis. But this higher gnosis in Paul is not the means of salvation, as it is in the mystery religions; it is only one of the effects of salvation. This difference is no mere matter of detail. On the contrary, it involves a contrast between two entirely different worlds of thought and life.

John Gresham Machen (1881-1937) was an American Presbyterian New Testament scholar, who led a revolt against modernist theology at Princeton, and founded Westminster Theological Seminary as well as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.