The Origin of Paul's Religion

By John Gresham Machen

Two of the contentions of the modern school of comparative religion have so far been examined. It has been shown that neither the group of Pauline conceptions which centers around the new birth (or, as Paul calls it, the new creation) nor the Pauline teaching about the sacraments was derived from the mystery religions. The third element of Paulinism which is thought to have come from pagan religion is found in the Pauline conception of Christ and of the work of Christ in redemption. This contention is connected especially with the name of Bousset, who is, however, supported in essentials by a considerable number of contemporary scholars. The hypothesis of Bousset is intimately connected with those hypotheses which have already been examined. A complete treatment of it at this point would therefore involve repetition. But it may here be set forth at least in a somewhat systematic, though still in a merely summary, way.

According to Bousset, the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem regarded Jesus chiefly as the Son of Man-the mysterious person, mentioned in the Jewish apocalypses, who was finally to come with the clouds of heaven and be the instrument in ushering in the Kingdom of God. Bousset is doubtful whether or no the title Son of Man was ever assumed by Jesus Himself, and regards the settlement of this question as lying beyond the scope of his book. But the tendency of the book is decidedly toward a radical denial of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. And at this point the cautious investigator, even if his presuppositions are the same as Bousset's own, may well be inclined to take alarm. The method which is here pursued seems to be leading logically to the elimination from the pages of history of the whole Gospel picture of Jesus, or rather to the use of that picture in the reconstruction not of the historical Jesus, but only of the belief of the Christian community. Of course Bousset does not push matters to such lengths; he is by no means inclined to follow W. B. Smith and Drews in denying the historicity of Jesus. But the reader of the first part of the “Kyrios Christos” has an uneasy feeling that if any of the Gospel picture still escapes the keen edge of Bousset’s criticism, it is only by accident. Many of those incidents in the Gospel narrative, many of those elements in the Gospel teaching, which have been considered most characteristic of the historical Jesus have here been removed. There seems to be no particular reason why the rest should remain; for the elements that remain are quite similar to the elements that have been made to go.

No mark of authenticity seems to be proof against the skepticism of this latest historian. Bousset thus illustrates the difficulty of separating the natural from the supernatural in the Gospel picture of Jesus. When the process of separation begins, it is difficult to bring it to a halt; the wheat is in danger of being rooted up with the tares. Bousset has dealt a severe blow to the prestige of the liberal reconstruction of Jesus. By the recent developments in his thinking he has shown by his own example that the liberal reconstruction is in a state of unstable equilibrium. It is always in danger of giving way to radical denial either of the historicity of Jesus or of the historicity of the Messianic consciousness. Such radicalism is faced by insuperable difficulties. Perhaps, then, there is something wrong with the critical method from which the radicalism always tends to result. But it is necessary now to examine a little more closely the belief of the primitive Jerusalem Church. That belief, Bousset maintains, did not involve any conception of Jesus as "Lord." The title "Lord," he says, was not applied to Jesus on Palestinian ground, and Jesus was not regarded by the early Jerusalem Church as the object of faith. The piety of the primitive Church was thus exclusively eschatological; Jesus was expected to return in glory from heaven, but meanwhile He was regarded as separated from His disciples. He was the heavenly "Son of Man," to come with the clouds of heaven, not the "Lord" now present in the Church.

These momentous assertions, which lie at the very basis of Bousset's hypothesis, are summed up in the elimination from Jerusalem Christianity of the title "Lord" as applied to Jesus. This elimination of the title "Lord" of course involves a rejection of the testimony of Acts. The Book of Acts contains the only extant narrative of the early progress of Jerusalem Christianity. And so far as the designations of Christ are concerned, the early chapters of the book have usually been thought to produce an impression of special antiquity and authenticity. These chapters apply the title "Lord" to Jesus; the words in Acts ii. 36, "God has made him both Lord and Christ," have often been regarded as especially significant. But to Bousset, in view of his opinion about the Book of Acts as a whole, the elimination of this testimony causes no difficulty.

But how does Bousset know that the primitive Jerusalem Church did not apply the term "Lord" to Jesus? The principal argument is derived from an examination of the Synoptic Gospels. The title "Lord," as applied to Jesus, Bousset believes, appears only "on the margin" (as it were) of the Gospel tradition; it does not appear as one of the primitive elements in the tradition. But since it does not appear firmly fixed in the Gospel tradition, it could not have formed a part of Christian belief in the community where the Gospel tradition was formed. The community where the Gospel tradition was formed was the Jerusalem Church. Therefore the title Lord as applied to Jesus did not form part of the belief of the Jerusalem Church. Such, in bare outline, is the argument of Bousset.

An examination of that argument in detail would far transcend the limits of the present discussion. But certain obvious remarks can be made.

In the first place, it is not perfectly clear that the title Lord appears only in secondary elements of the Gospel tradition. Certainly it must be granted to Bousset that the instances where the word "Lord" appears in the vocative case do not necessarily involve any recognition of the lofty title "Lord" as belonging to Jesus; for the word could be used in direct address in the presence of any person to whom respect was to be paid. Nevertheless, in some of the passages the word does seem to be more than a mere reverential form of address. Bousset himself admits that such is the case at least in Matt. vii. 21, "Not every one who says unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven," and his opinion that this passage is secondary as compared with Lk. vi. 46 is insufficiently grounded. The cases in the Gospels where the title is used absolutely are not very numerous, and they occur chiefly in the Gospel of Luke. But the estimate of them as secondary depends of course upon certain critical conclusions about the relationships of the Synoptic Gospels. And it is doubtful whether Bousset has quite succeeded in refuting the argument which can be derived from Mk. xii. 35-37 (and parallels), the passage about David's son and David's Lord. Bousset himself uses this passage as an important testimony to the belief of the early Jerusalem Church, though he does not regard it as representing a genuine saying of Jesus. Yet here Jesus is made to call attention to the fact that David called the Messiah "Lord." If this passage represents the belief about Jesus of the primitive Jerusalem Church, what stronger testimony could there be to the use in that church of the title "Lord" as applied to Jesus? Bousset avoids the difficulty by calling attention to the fact that the Old Testament passage (Ps. cx. 1) is here quoted not according to the original but according to the Septuagint translation. In the original He-brew, says Bousset, there was a distinction between the word "Lord" as applied to God and the word "Lord" as applied to the other person who is referred to; the Hebrew has, "Jahwe said to my Lord (adoni)." Thus that second person, according to the Hebrew, can be regarded as a human individual, and all that is meant by the term "Lord" as used of him by David is that he stood higher than David. Bousset seems to think that this explanation destroys the value of the passage as a witness to the use in the Jerusalem Church of the religious term "Lord" as applied to Jesus. But such is by no means the case. For if the Messiah (Jesus) was higher than David, so that David could call Him Lord, then Jesus must have occupied some very lofty position. If David could call Him Lord, would the title be refused to Him by humble members of the Jerusalem Church? On Bousset's interpretation the passage may not directly attest the use of the title by the Jerusalem Church, but it does seem to presuppose it. It may also be questioned whether Bousset has succeeded in getting rid of Mk. xi. 3, as a witness to the title Lord as applied to Jesus in the Jerusalem Church.

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.