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The Pauline Epistles - Re-Studied and Explained

Edwin Johnson, M.A., 1894

Formerly Professor of Classical Literature in New College,
S. Hampstead: Author of "Antiqua Mater: A Study of
Christian Origins," "The Rise of Christendom," and others.

Study Version

Updated presentation and editing by Michael Hoffman, 2003.

Why everyone should read this book

This 100-page book from 1894 shows that:

· The Paul figure was a literary invention from the 1500's

· The purportedly early Church Father writings were literary inventions of the 1500's

· Eusebius' Church History was written in the 1500's.

· The Gospels were written in the 1500's.

· No Cathedrals are ancient; they are from the early part of the modern period, such as 1400.

· We don't know how many centuries actually lie between the time of Augustus Caesar and the modern era -- the time of the Roman Empire is likely several centuries closer. The Radical Critic Hermann Detering pointed out to Uwe Topper that Johnson anticipates Illig, Topper, and the New Chronology. The New Chronology holds that the Dark Ages -- the years 600-900 -- didn't exist; for example, the year 911 is the year 614, relabelled, with later historians projecting fantasy events into the phantom 300-year period that never existed, as though I claimed there were 300 years between now and now, filled with all sorts of literary inventions. Johnson goes even further, writing "It has been said that Greek letters were silenced in Italy during about the period "700-1400" of our chronology. The statement is really without meaning, for the period is imaginary." Uwe Topper was amazed to discover the present book, which made his own would-be radical New Chronology look like a mere leap-year calendar adjustment.

· I survey many radical theories of Christian and religious origins, but this book is the most extremely paradigm-shifting theory I've found. Most excited books putting forth a new earth-shattering theory are really pretty narrow, accepting the great bulk of the received liberal-critical paradigm, proposing to shift just a couple of aspects.

· Prior to this book, Johnson wrote the more conventionally radical book Antiqua Mater. The present book is a sequel that leaps even beyond the excellent Antiqua Mater in terms of amount of deep paradigm shifting.

Many of Johnson's points are revolutionary, even if some might turn out to need repositioning such as in light of the Nag Hammadi library and Dead Sea scrolls. How would Johnson interpret these finds? What adjustments do we make to the paradigms of Johnson and Erman to integrate Johnson's findings with Bart Ehrman's 2003 book "Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew"?

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About this version

Preface

The present effort towards the elucidation of the Pauline problem is due to the initiation of Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot, M.R.A.S., editor of the Oriental Translations (New Series), and the encouragement of one or two other friends. I desire specially to thank Mr. Arbuthnot for the generous recognition of my labours in the cause of literary and historical science which I find in his writings.

It will be understood, of course, that I have merely attempted to write, within moderate limits, a suggestive treatise; for to exhaust the Pauline question would be to exhaust the question of the origin and development of Christian Letters as a whole.

Let me add one word. I have applied the simplest analytic tests in the study of literary material; but it leads to results that are, I freely admit, astounding to myself, no less than to the learned world in general. I am not surprised that the imputation of madness should be made against me by hasty thinkers; but I trust that calm and thoughtful readers will accept what I have written as a credible, though always corrigible, statement of literary facts.

Chapter 1: Introduction

The Pauline Question Freshly Considered in Relation to the Revival of Letters

I am writing this brochure on the Pauline Epistles at the suggestion of some friends, who are interested in my researches, and who desire to see the unusual opinions which I have set forth either confirmed or confuted. They have, I believe, given a certain measure of assent to the general principles of historical investigation which I have laid down; but they are of opinion that I should descend into further details, and show, if I am able to do so, that what I have alleged concerning the whole system of Church literature is true of some particular part of it -- say the Pauline Epistles.

These are celebrated compositions. They have long been supposed to be the productions of one of the most remarkable men who took part in the foundation of the Christian Church; and this some 1,800 years ago. I, on the contrary, assert that these long-inherited notions of our education are entirely illusory and false. I maintain that the Pauline Legend and Epistles date from the Revival of Letters in Europe; that the Epistles were in all probability not the composition of one man, but the product of several pens, and that their contents should be used to throw light on that remarkable period when the great Church organisation was breaking asunder, in consequence of internal dissensions.

The unpleasant part of my task is this: I must contradict incessantly the statements originally made by the publishers of these writings, which were received without effective contradiction, and are still held, almost by the whole world. It is impossible to approach the probable truth until this contradiction shall have been decisively made; and I can hardly hope to carry any readers with me, save those who have been, like myself, harassed by the obscurity which envelopes our past, and who desire to set their minds at rest upon one of the gravest questions that can occupy the minds of serious thinkers.

The question of the Pauline Epistles is a large question. For, although the documents themselves are of no great bulk, they allude to, and they rest upon, a mass of other documents of the Jewish and the Christian Churches.

Everyone is aware that the legend of Paul's life and Epistles could not have been written until the collection of Biblical books in use among the Jews was known. Everyone is aware that there are allusions in the legend to Rabbindom and its writings. If, therefore, to speak in general terms, the Rabbinical writings were not known until the beginning of what I have called the Age of Publication (around 1500 A.D.), so nothing of the Pauline writings could have been known till that same epoch.

Again, the Pauline writings are essentially part of the original scheme of the New Testament. The general facts about the New Testament, therefore, determine the general facts about the Pauline writings. And, once more, we hear of the "New Testament" at the same time that we hear of the Old Testament. Paul, consequently, bears, as it were, on his shoulders, the whole system of writings that have emanated from the Jewish and the Christian Churches.

Thus we are necessarily thrown back upon those general facts with which I have endeavoured to deal in other writings. I shall be unable in this place to adduce the whole mass of evidence, both negative and positive, by which I am convinced that our ancestors were in the mere twilight of literary knowledge about 400 years ago. I will invite my readers to believe that I have made a most anxious investigation of this subject, and am quite certain that the beginning of Biblical knowledge cannot really be traced to an earlier epoch. And, even at the epoch to which I refer, the reading and writing class must have been most limited indeed. It is a very dim and far-off time.

At the outset I am anxious to fix in the minds of my readers the conviction that we are profoundly ignorant of times comparatively near to our own, much more therefore of times more remote. It must be clear, it seems to me, to every truly thoughtful person who turns the subject over in his mind with due attention, that it is through the tradition of our immediate ancestors we can alone know aught of what was "in their time, and in the old time before them." We cannot, as it were, bound over their heads, or reach beyond them after a knowledge that was denied to their curiosity.

The present age is one of general and growing illumination, compared with the last century. By the aid of Mr. Lecky's pages you may realise how gross was the general ignorance. Henry Fielding, in the critical chapters of his great novel, teaches you to regard him as the first genuine naturalist or realist historian of humanity that had yet appeared, and pours contempt repeatedly upon history and chroniclers in the monkish sense of the words. The seventeenth century is much darker than the eighteenth, and the sixteenth than the seventeenth. But it should be pointed out that what characterises the sixteenth-century historical literature is an enormous propensity to lying in all its forms of monstrous inventions and exaggerations on the one hand, of suppression and concealment of the truth on the other.

I shall point out in these pages that it is from books bearing date after 1500 we may, and must, be convinced that our dreams of "primitive" and "mediaeval" Christianity are vain; that the beginnings of literary publication, and of the Christian Church and its letters, are really one problem to those who understand the elementary facts of the case.

Polydore Vergil's Statement Concerning Dean Colet and His Relation to Pauline Study

Polydore Vergil - From the Catholic Encyclopedia: "Born at Ubino about 1470; died there probably in 1555. Having studied at Bologna and Padua, he became successfully secretary to the Duke of Urbino and chamberlain to Alexander VI. He became famous by two early works, "Proverbiorum libellus" and "De inventoribus rerum", which attained extraordinary popularity. In 1501 the pope sent him to England as a sub-collector of Peterspence. He became intimate with Henry VII, who in 1505 commissioned him to write the history of England, and he obtained much preferment, including the archdeaconry of Wells. On 22 Oct., 1510, he was naturalized as an English subject. Subsequently to a visit to Rome in 1514, he offended Wolsey who had entrusted him with business, and was imprisoned and deprived of his sub-collectorship. Though finally released, he avenged himself by writing a hostile view of Wolsey in his history, which profoundly influenced later English historians. This work was published in 1533 and is specially valuable for his account of Henry VII's reign. In the third edition (Basle, 1555) the work is continued from 1509 to 1538. He is the first of the modern historians, consulting authorities, weighing evidence, and writing a connected story, not a simple chronicle. His other works are too numerous to specify. Throughout the religious changes he remained loyal, though not a fervent, Catholic. He kept in touch with Italy by frequent visits, and the religious changes under Edward VI led him to return there to spend his last years in his native land."

Dean Colet

Let me now call attention to some salient points in the evidence which tends to prove that, whatever may have been the previous fate of books in ages more remote, very few could have been extant in any part of Europe 400 years ago.

Let me render from the Latin a passage from a writer who says that he was studying and writing in London during the reign of King Henry the Eighth. Of the early Tudor period (1485-1603) he expressly says:

"In those times Perfect Letters, both Latin and Greek, shut out from Italy by nefarious wars, exterminated, expelled, poured over the Alps, through all Germany, Gaul, England, and Scotland. The Germans first introduced them into their towns, and, having been the most illiterate of all in former times, are now the most learned. To the French, English, Scotch, not to speak of others, the same boon was imparted by the Almighty. For letters alone make our good deeds eternal, and preserve the memory of our name. Therefore many great men and most noble ladies everywhere began to assist the studies of good arts and disciplines. That these might the more earnestly be cultivated among the English, Margaret, Henry's mother, a most holy woman, at the exhortation of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, a man of the highest learning, grace, and integrity, built at Cambridge, in a noble and celebrated place, two splendid houses, in which she instituted two colleges of disciples, and dedicated one to Christ Saviour, the other to St. John Evangelist; and she gave large funds for their living. Also, in that academy, John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, a father of illustrious piety and virtue, was a little while before founder of a college which he consecrated to Jesus; that, under his leadership, they who gave themselves to the culture of good disciplines might not err, but might pursue the right path, and receive the true reward of. glory and praise which he promised to well-doers. About the same time, also, William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, led by the example of Margaret, founded a college of youths at Oxon, who should be devoted to good disciplines, and exercises in letters, in the hall commonly called Brasyn Nose, so named because there a brazen figure, with immane face, stands before the doors. Also Richard, Bishop of Winton, did a similar work at Oxon, and he called it the Corpus Christi College. The same stimulus of virtue and glory stirred up John Colet, dean, as they say, of St. Paul's, to the desire of propagating good letters of that kind.

"He, adorned partly by the virtue of his mind and soul, partly by the integrity of his life and morals, was held among his fellow Englishmen almost as a second Apostle Paul, because by nature saintly and religious from his early boyhood; he betook himself to the study of divine letters, and chose Paul for his preceptor, and so studied Paul, both at Oxon and Cambridge and in Italy, that when he returned home a finished scholar he began, in his native city of London, to read the Pauline Epistles, and often to preach in the temples. He lived as he taught, and so men acquiesced in his excellent precepts.

"A most temperate man, he lived on one meal a day. He thirsted not for honours or wealth; but the riches he fled from pursued and overtook him. It so happened that, of two and twenty children whom his father, Henry Colet, had by his Christian wife, a noble lady, John alone survived, and became his father's sole heir. Then John, seeing that many of his fellow citizens, by the mere habit of their nature, turned out grave and modest men, thought that they would be much much more excellent if they should receive a good education. Therefore, he resolved to assist, at his own expense, the youth of London to acquire learning. He founded, in that part of St. Paul's Churchyard which looks to the east, a splendid school, and appointed William Lily teacher, and a second to instruct the ruder boys. Good Lily, as Horace says, was integer vitae scelerisque purus. Having studied the Perfect Letters some years in Italy, he returned home, and was the first Englishman to teach them in England to his countrymen. Before him Cornelio Vitellio, an Italian, of Corneto, in Tuscany, of a noble stock, was the first of all to teach good letters to the boys at Oxon. John Reighey and Richard Jones followed Lily as masters. The masters were endowed with yearly stipends from Colet's property. (Polydore Vergil, "Analica Historia," 36, s. f.)

Faint Beginnings of Literary Culture under the Tudors

I might leave this striking passage to speak for itself, were it not that its teaching and that of kindred passages have been so much neglected. I am bound to infer from them: (1) That there was practically no literature in England before the Tudor period (1485-1603) -- no teaching, reading, or writing class; (2) that letters did gradually come to us from Italy during that period, but that no exact date, not even of the foundation of St. Paul's school, is ascertainable that we must consequently content ourselves with the vague date, "about 400 years ago," of the epoch when literary culture was beginning in England.

Is there a particle of evidence contradictory of the impression to be derived from the above passage? Not one solitary particle that I have ever been able to find. On the contrary, I have discovered a number of evidences of the greatest value, of the most decisive nature, confirmatory of the statements made so guilelessly, as it seems, by Polydore Vergil.

I am perfectly aware that the stories about "King Alfred," or "King Henry Beauclerc," and so on, will recur to the reader's mind. Suffice it to say, that these very tales which have induced so much illusion as to the rise of literary culture in England can be proved from this same writer to have been the monastic fabrications of his own time, and to have gradually come to light during the Tudor period.

I shall now have to assume, with my readers' goodwill, that letters of any kind, and consequently Biblical letters in particular, were only beginning to be cultivated here during the Tudor period -- very slightly even then; that the evidence for this statement is quite massive; and that for a contrary opinion no scintilla of evidence exists, or ever has existed. It is false dates, it is the superficial study of the books which were coming to light during the Tudor period itself, which have caused the great prevailing deception in this important matter.

Let me add that what is proved in regard to England is proved in general for North and West Europe, according to the statement of Polydore above quoted, confirmed by a weight of evidence respecting the monastic literature which I have closely studied, but cannot in this place adduce.

It may be asked by those who follow the vulgar opinion: Have we not evidence, in "Gildas" and in "Bede," of culture flourishing in the most remote times in different parts of our islands [Great Britain]? The answer is, that those writings are in reality part of the great collaboration of the literary monks of the order of St. Benedict; they have been antedated in accordance with their fabulous system, and have been ascribed to imaginary persons. No one can doubt that this is the truth who closely scrutinises the catalogue of monastic works ascribed to "John Boston, of Bury St. Edmund's," and other lists brought to light by John Leland, librarian of Henry the Eighth, who is stated to have made a literary tour of the island during the period 1533-1539. (Leland is our first bibliographer. The Boston catalogue, as usual, is antedated; Leland knows it not.)

Our scholars have laxly accepted the dates assigned to "Gildas" and to "Bede;" they have not examined the style and contents of those writers, with a view to ascertain whether there was any internal probability in the system of their tales. Hence the great illusion which besets the learned world in reference both to the nature of Christian letters, and the epoch at which they began to be diffused in England.

Not to confuse my readers with too many details, I would beg them to keep in mind the date 1533 as one of the best landmarks in chronology I am able at present to point out. In that year Polydore is stated to have addressed Henry the Eighth., pointing out that next to nothing was known of English history, and disparaging the few monkish writings on the subject which had come into his hands. The same year Leland is alleged to have set out on his literary tour through the monasteries, which occupied him till 1539. If these dates be trustworthy, the results of his investigations show that the whole scheme of Church history must have been laid down and brought, as it were, to a short first edition during about the period 1500-1533.

But the bad dating of documents is the great scandal of the student. I cannot write in the smooth and confident manner of the handbooks which are in general use, because I know from repeated experiments and tests that we have not a "fifteenth-century" date that can be trusted, and that a great number of "sixteenth-century" dates are false. But I may insist in perfect confidence that not in Italy itself could Church literature have been commenced before the close of that dark age we call the "fifteenth century."

Chapter 2: Polydore on the Origin of Christianity

The Question of Chronology and Dates: An Imaginary Period Has Been Created and Called the "Middle Ages"

I must return to the question of the Pauline Epistles. It is impossible to determine what form they had assumed in Colet's time, or what his exact teaching may have been. In fact, I hold it impossible to suppose that the full Pauline Epistles, as we have them, could have been taught in England at the time to which Polydore refers. There can have been extant, in my opinion, only the little book of Sentences, called "The Apostle," which is so frequently alluded to in Church books, out of which the larger Pauline Epistles were gradually evolved.

The difficulty for students is that they can find nothing but bald, meagre statements, and dates so fallacious that no more than a rough value can be ascribed to them.

Let me refer in illustration to another writing under the name of Polydore Vergil, "On Inventors" (De Inventoribus Rerum), the greater part of which is also alleged to have been written in London during the time of Henry the Eighth. It seems as if it were earlier than the English History, because the English History refers to it; and yet the dates given in the work on Inventors appear to prove a later time of writing -- after 1533. I mention this matter because it is one of the hints to the reader that he may not expect to discover any precise record of literary events during the reign of Henry the Eighth. And that, again, is a reminder of the extremely loose, indistinct, and vaguely reminiscent manner in which the "History" of the time has been written. (See Rev. J. S. Brewer's preface to documents of Henry the Eighth.)

The little work on Inventors is very important for my present exposition. Here is a writer, one of the foremost of the Revival of Letters, who tells us that no one has written on the subject since the time of Pliny! No one has had anything to say on the subject of the progress of human culture during the vast period Of 1,400 years and more! How can the meaning of such a statement be realised? I venture to say it never has been realised by the learned world. And it is one of a thousand facts which may convince an open mind that our chronology is a dream, a reckoning of an imaginary time-interval -- an interval never registered -- between the days of Pliny and the days of Polydore.

But now the latter part of this little work is devoted to the "Beginnings of the Institutors of Christianity," and I invite the particular attention of my readers to the extreme thinness of the story at so late a date, and yet to the air of novelty with which every particular is imparted, as if to a small learned Latin-reading class, who as yet have no clear idea of what Christianity was, or how it had come into existence. I cannot conceive any competent student pondering the contents of this small pamphlet, and comparing it with the sources on which it is based, without coming to the conclusion that this writer, dating himself near the time of the Council of Trent (1546), is sufficient of himself to dispose of the whole theory of the antiquity of Christianity, and to show that the Christian priesthood and its letters are recent institutions in the world.

Let me quote a few things that bear on the Pauline question. ("On Inventors" 4:1.) The first chapter of On Inventors, "On the Beginning of the Church, and the Christian Religion," quotes "The Apostle," Eph. 5, as calling "Christ the Head of the Church." After this, Polydore seldom quotes the Apostle, though he quotes from a number of the writers who appear on the list of the "Illustrious Men," to which I will hereafter refer more particularly.

Peter and Paul as Martyr-Founders of the Religion

The second chapter of Polydore Vergil's On Inventors is "On the Origin of the Christian Republic and its Wondrous Increase from the First, and the Martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul."

Polydore tells the tale briefly in accord with the Acts of the Apostles, and Eusebius; and one can hardly avoid the suspicion that either the books were not in a complete state, or that they were so little known and read that it was desirable to epitomise them for his public. He shows that the leading thought about the Apostolic pair was that they had both "laid the first foundations of the religion, and had obtained the crown of martyrdom." And who is the "witness" for the truth of this legend? None other than "Tertullian," one of the most audacious rhetoricians of the "illustrious" list -- in other words, of the secret monastic faction who conficted rather than compiled the whole story of Christian origins, and passed it off upon the world as a system of "Testimony" from times inconceivably remote.

"Tertullian against Marcion," book 4, is quoted for this well-known ejaculation: "Let us see what milk the Corinthians imbibed from Paul, by what rule the Galatians were corrected, what the Philippians read, the Thessalonians, the Ephesians, what also the Romans next sound, to whom Peter and Paul left the Gospel signed with their blood."

Polydore quotes also another passage from the same writer, by which he says it appears beyond doubt that the two Apostles were the "Authors of the Religion among the Romans." A few texts are further quoted on various points from "The Apostle," and that is all. There is nothing whatever to show that the Pauline Epistles, as we know them, had any special value or weight for the writer. On the contrary, the writers on whom he mostly relies are the Latin Doctors of the "illustrious list." And there need not have been any Greek writers at all in his hands -- for all the use he makes of them Latin texts suffice; and it is one of many incidental proofs that Latin, not Greek, is the proper and original language of the Church. So far the extremely meagre, cold, uninteresting, and, it must be added, early, account of Paul and his writings in the Historian of Inventors.

The Lack of a Sense of Time-Perspective

Consider the striking evidence which this writer bears, as it seems, on the face of it, unconsciously, to the fallacy and delusion of supposing that the legend of Paul had come down to him through an immense interval of time. A man who has anything like a real perspective of past time before his imagination does not, and cannot, bound over vast intervals without an effort. He does not see the events of a thousand years agone as distinctly as he sees those of his own time. Yet this is what Polydore appears to do, and what many of us, in our ignorance of a true chronological perspective, are in the habit of doing.

For example, in a late chapter on heresies and schisms, this writer enumerates:

1. That of Simon Magus

2. That of the Nicolaitanes

3. That of the Ebionites

Of schisms, these:

1. That of Novatus, 255 A.D.

2. That of Arius about 89 years later [344]

3. That of Damasus of the same age.

But here, instead of saying to himself, "This rivalry of Damasus with another for the Pontificate, with violence and arms, happened a long 1,200 years ago; we cannot know much about it; times have changed," he actually says, "This foul strife of the Pontiff's has widely increased even to this day, because the ambition of honours has invaded the priesthood more and more from day to day."

The reason for the coincidence between the sanguinary legend of Damasus and the actual deeds of the sixteenth-century popes is that the lists of the popes and the legends of their lives were executed about the same time with the rest of the Church literature, and upon the allegorical principle. History was made designedly to repeat, in an imagined past, the events of the real present. And thus the gratification of the readers, and other useful purposes, were subserved. Notions of time and of probability were so feeble that the absurdity of supposing that any writers could trace popes through 1,200 years, up to St. Peter, passed without question.

Luther Is Condemned by a Pauline Text

Again, immediately after this Polydore again skips the interval between the schism of Damasus and that of Luther, as if nothing of that kind had occurred in the course of some 1,200 years! Here the only connection he mentions of Paul with Luther is in the passage in which the apostle writes to Titus, to lay down the penalty to be inflicted on leaders of heresies: "Flee the man who is author of sects, after one and a second admonition, knowing that he is overthrown who is of his party, and sins, condemned by himself."

And there follow more quotations on the same point from Chrysostom, from the "Nicene Synod," and this on the authority of the sixteenth-century writer, Platina, the papal librarian.

Luther, then, who quotes certain voices of Paul as oracular in favour of his opinions, is here condemned by the Catholic priest through another voice of Paul. It is one of the illustrations of the fact that there are many voices behind the mask and person of Paul!

Literary Art Should Be Compared with Painting for the Discovery of Perspective

But let me give another example of the chronological artifice and illusion which it is too all-important to correct. Polydore tells the legend, in part from the Acts of the Apostles, how the Eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, was baptised by Philip, and converted the queen herself, with her whole family and part of her people, to the Christian religion, "so that it always flourished in that nation."

Does our author, Polydore, ask himself whether the tale is probable, or whether such a survival of Christianity in Ethiopia could be traced through some 1,500 years? Not at all; he is immediately reminded of something that occurred in his own time: when Clement VII. received the promise of faith and obedience from the legate of the king, Francis Alvarez. So long has Christianity been making its way to Abyssinia!

The question arises, had Polydore and other writers any sense for dates and their value at all? Or were they conscious that they were repeating fables certain to be detected by posterity? The truth is partly of one and partly of the other kind, as it seems to me. They must have dates; otherwise there would be no backbone to the long story -- no semblance even of a perspective of the past. But the enormous gaps which were left in the scheme of 1,500 years expose the artifice of it. And no one who studies these tales in the same way that he studies the foreground and the distances of a picture can fail to perceive in time that all the figures and all the scenes described in this little work on the origins of Christendom are absolutely of one period, and are due to one effort of collaborating art.

The point on which I am dwelling is curious and novel to the majority of readers. For want of attention to it, the greatest blunders have been committed by our modern historians and critics. We must become more aware of literary art, illusion, and perspective.

Historical literary art should always be compared with pictorial art, if we are to avoid illusions. It is evident that a mistake on canvas is much more readily discovered by a spectator than a similar mistake is discovered by the readers of a book. It is easier to fill the mind with the contents of a crowded canvas in the course of half an hour's attentive study than it is to fill the mind with the figures and scenes of a story which demands a day for its perusal. The effort of attention is much longer and more painful in the one case than in the other. And, again, few readers have that vividness of imagination which enables them to realise the contents of the book as they can realise the contents of the canvas. So that many a person who would detect a glaring fault in the picture, and would say at once, "This is not life-like, this is not true to nature," might pass over precisely the analogous fault in the book without recognition. From this cause great errors have arisen in the study of the literature before us.

Everyone, in gazing at the works of the early masters of painting, becomes aware of faults which must displease a modern eye, however they may be atoned for by great excellences of a certain kind. In particular, they had not a just knowledge of perspective, or of light and shade. Imagine a picture by one of these painters where a number of saints and doctors are arranged in tiers, facing the spectator; where each countenance in the background is equally distinct with those in the foreground; where all wear very much the same expression, are clothed in the same habit, and evidently belong to the same class. You recognise the ideality of these portraits; you note that they have not been drawn directly from the life, but from a certain fund of ideals in the artist's mind, and that a certain limited period of human activity in art is here represented.

Things like these can readily be learned by spectators of ordinary intelligence, who visit the great galleries; but they have not yet been learned, and they are more difficult to learn in reference to the kindred art of Church literature. It is, therefore, most important to insist that Church letters and Church painting are parallel, analogous, and contemporaneous phenomena, which mutually explain and illustrate one another. In various ways the painter may be made the critic of the historian, and the historian the critic of the painter.

Now, had Polydore been the thorough critic (which in his time and situation he could not be) of the Church letters, he would have seen that there was not a true perspective of the past to be found in the writers from whom he compiled; and, further, he would, on close inquiry, have found that the reason was that these writers were all of the same period, of the same library, not one of them a "witness," not one of them other than an artist in fiction. But, had he known the full truth in these matters, it was not for him, as a priest of the Church, to impart his knowledge to the world. As it is, his work has undergone the censure of the Inquisition.

It would be quite unsatisfactory to treat the Pauline question without endeavouring to overcome the prejudices and illusions which our education has begotten in us with reference to Church institutions as a whole. It must be firmly insisted on the current notion that we can see our way through so many centuries of past time is really baseless. And, in stating this for the first time with so much emphasis, I am merely, with as much thoroughness as I can, following up clues which were in the hands of some of my predecessors.

Edwin Hatch on the Historical Illusion

For example, Dr. Edwin Hatch, of Oxford, said that "many institutions and elements of institutions which have sometimes been thought to belong to primitive Christianity belong, in fact, to the Middle Ages." My comment upon this is that both "Primitive Christianity "and "Middle Ages" are figures of speech, not phrases of science. If, for an earnest though not a radical student, like Hatch, the "primitive" resolved itself into the "mediaeval," the meaning is, that many hundred years must be deducted from the alleged age of the institution. But actually, the supposed Middle Age institutions resolve themselves into modern institutions; that is, from the Tudor period (1485-1603).

Tudor: English ruling dynasty (1485-1603), including Henry VII and his descendants Henry the Eighth, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.

Hatch says: "In the minds of many persons, no doubt, the past centuries of Christianity seem to be all alike shrouded in a common mist, and the institutions of one age are not distinguishable from those of another." And why is this so? Simply and solely, as I have been explaining, because the literary pictures or frescoes from which we derive these misty impressions of indistinguishable ages were composed during one short period, by one class and faction, who, with all their devices, had not subtlety enough to represent a growth of Church institutions, during an alleged space of time so vast, in a manner agreeable to our knowledge of the laws of human life.

The same clergyman event far towards admitting that Church institutions rest on utility, not on positive Divine command. Then the little book of Polydore's is understood, in which Christianity is treated as an invention, it will be understood that there is nothing whatever in these institutions which is not traceable to human art, and explainable by the laws of human art. There is nothing mysterious in the system, in the proper and ecclesiastical use of that word; but an obscurity must ever hang over the secret doings of the real founder or founders of the system, before the time came when it was to be published to the world.

It will be well for me to refer to the little work of Polydore as a neglected text-book. It is so brief, so easily mastered, it makes little demand on the time and attention of the student. It contains allusions to all the books which are positively necessary for the understanding of the question of Christian origins. On the other hand, the omission of very much literature, which has been supposed ancient, together with the slightness of the whole narrative, are striking proofs of the modernity of Christianity.

The truth is that this book, instead of being too late a book for the study of the Pauline question, is, in the opinion of the Church of Rome itself, too early a book; for we are told that the only edition approved, after purgation by the Inquisition, is that of Gregory XII, 1676.

We must keep in mind that the germ of the great Pauline legend is a pure invention; nothing but a literary fabrication. That Peter and Paul were joint Roman martyrs and founders of the Roman Catholic religion is the principle of the whole mythology. To discuss whether Peter ever was in Rome, and, if not, whether his inseparable brother could have been there, is to mistake the whole question. We have to deal with something much more interesting than a mixture of fact and fiction in the ordinary sense. It is from first to last a system of pure allegorical mythology that has been constructed about the names of Peter and of Paul.

Chapter 3: Beginnings of the Pauline Legend

The Eusebian Church History and the "List of Illustrious Men" Are Older Than the New Testament

I shall now endeavour to trace out the legend of Paul and his Epistles from its inception. But it is obvious that, in a brochure like the present, I cannot enter upon a mass of details on which large volumes continue to be written. I can only ask my readers to accept my report of the evidence as conscientious and truthful, so far as my means of knowledge extend, and request the more studious among them to follow up my references and indications, that they may test and verify, or correct, my conclusions for themselves.

I must now deal with the references to Paul in the Eusebian literature -- that is, the Church History and the list of "Illustrious Men." And here a series of literary falsehoods must be sharply contradicted. It is in the Latin List of Illustrious Men, or Catholic writers, that the name of Eusebius occurs. (Chapter lxxxi. [in Arabic=81?]) This list was published during the Age of Publication, commonly called the "sixteenth century;" and there is absolutely no vestige of proof that this key book to Church literature (for such it evidently is) was composed, or could have been composed, long before that age. It is certain that in its present form it was not in the hands of Polydore. It is alleged that Eusebius was bishop of Caesarea, and was connected with literary men in that city 1,200 years before Polydore's time. That is sheer invention and falsehood. The real authors of the Eusebian books were the literary monks of the West, and the city to which they were related was, above all, Paris. Perhaps St. Germain's Abbey was their headquarters. It is alleged that they were written in Greek and rendered into Latin. That is also false, for they prove beyond all doubt to have been written in Latin, and were badly rendered into Greek. The reason the monks had for stating their great falsehood about the Greek original of the History and the New Testament was that they wished to give the lustre of that association with the greatest of the learned languages to the Church, and to support another falsehood -- namely, that the early Church was planted in Greek cities. It may be confidently said that these allegations are demonstrably false in the full sense of that phrase.

I have entered closely upon this question in a special series of published papers; and, in my inability to treat it in this place, I may here refer my readers to the very valuable work, in English, entitled "Palmoromaica," ascribed to the Rev. John Black, and published early in this century, wherein the acute and learned author puts forth a variety of cogent arguments against the Greek and for the Latin original, which may easily be strengthened, and which are powerfully suggestive in the direction of my own researches and discoveries.

Let me, then, beg my readers to assume with me that the Church History is in reality antedated by more than 1,200 years; that it is, in fact, a sixteenth century book in any case not older than that period; that it is used, as far as we can ascertain from the dates given us, for the first time by the historian of Inventors about the year 1533. But, again, I must warn against implicit reliance on such dates. That caution being understood, I have not the slightest fear of misleading them. The Greek edition of the History is stated to have been published at Paris by Stephens about the year 1544. There are some earlier dated Latin editions.

To any reader of taste for style, the Greek, and all translations made from the Greek, are simply detestable; and, to any reader of taste for what is more important, the facts of life, veracity of speech, and rectitude of purpose, the book is still more detestable, whether in the better Latin or in the bad Greek. It is a system of fictions, for the most part inelegant, stupid, and revolting, built upon the Creed; the Creed itself being a series of invented propositions, the authority for which is said to be none other than the Latin writer of the History himself ("Rufinus"),

The Nature of the "Church History" and "List of Illustrious Men" Explained: The Plot of the Pauline Romance Laid Bare

I must leave my studious readers to peruse the [Eusebian] Church History for themselves, which is no more formidable a task than the reading of the work on Inventors. Let me merely make my own brief report. This unknown monk [which?] pretends to be a man of research into very scanty records of the past. That means, as we have already seen, that at the beginning of the sixteenth century there were no records of Christianity extant. He is not a man of research at all, except in the sense in which many novelists and romancers are men of research for the purposes of their constructions. This writer is, in fact, simply a theological romancer, and only in that sense can be called an historian at all. But in the sixteenth century you can hardly find any but that species of story-tellers, in whose writings can only be discovered certain deposits of general facts and relations, but no particular well-defined facts on which we depend in the same sense that we depend on the reports in the daily newspapers.

But I must come to the question of Paul. This wonderful being is not yet fully evolved out of the consciousness of the confictors of Church History. He is an apparition, vague, shadowy, unsubstantial; there is none of that flesh-and-blood life-likeness, that glow of feeling, that impression of an all-vigorous and enthusiastic personality, that one has learned to associate with the name of Paul. A few sentences will repeat all that this feeble fictionist has to say of his life career:

1. "Paul first persecuted the Church, but afterwards became an Apostle." That is the short plot or argument, which, as we shall see, other hands were commissioned to work out in the elaborate and captivating romance of the Acts of the Apostles. It is just in this way that artists in fiction set to work. They catch their happy thought: it is a contrast, a conversion, an improbability such as readers love. If we meditate the brief plot, we see that it contains possibilities of great interest. At the same time, we cannot but detest the animus against the Jews which dictated the course of the historical romance.

2. Later comes the statement, "From Jerusalem, as far as Illyricum, Paul made a journey, preaching the Gospel." This is given four times over (H. E. 2:18; 3, 1 and 4; 6:25). Now, why in this poor meagre History (so-called) does the monk want to repeat himself on this point so often? I cannot conjecture, unless it be that he desires to give an emphatic hint to his coadjutors that must not be forgotten. In any case, it is merely a continuation of the plot or argument of the romance; of which we see the elaboration in the narratives of the missionary journeys in the Acts of the Apostles.

3. "Paul founded the Corinthian and the Roman Church (with Peter) and the Ephesian Church." Again, a continuation of the plot, by which preparation is made for the lofty position Paul is to assume as a great founder of Church institutions along with his brother apostle Peter. The scheme is to bring them from the East to Rome, which is nothing but part of the great scheme to represent Christianity as an Oriental birth, whereas it is Occidental; and, again, to make an early start from Rome itself as the determined metropolis of the Christian world, in the designs of these writers. It by no means follows that they wrote in Rome itself.

4. "Paul in a certain Epistle makes mention of his wife." In the same connection it is said that Peter and Philip were wedded. But it is altogether a blunder to suppose that the writer had any epistle known to us under Paul's hand at the time of writing. He appears to have written this short chapter, like many other passages, by way of tentative precedent in favour of the married life of at least some orders of the clergy. In Luther's Bible Paul is made to plead for matrimony. Polydore also defends a wedded clergy.

5. "Paul, after having fulfilled the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum, afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero." (H.E. 3:1) Another bald line of plot destined to be expounded in other writings. They have at last brought the apostle to the city where his career is destined to terminate, and his invisible influence to begin.

The Eusebian thinks it well to give his "authority" for this little chapter on the geographical distribution of the Apostles. Who is it? No other than "Origen," one of his fellows on the list of the "Illustrious;" really, one of his secret collaborators.

I cannot forbear to point out how ridiculous are the blunders which our clerical writers have made, either in their ignorance of this literature, or in their desire to defend it. They assume that this "Eusebius" is writing 200 years or more after the New Testament writers. That is the primary blunder. They then assume that he must be following the New Testament writers, though every page shows that this is impossible. That is the next blunder -- a consequence of the first. And here, where he quotes an alleged fragment of "Origen" about Paul, they say Eusebius has alone preserved this fragment, and they proceed to insert it in Origen's works! A third blunder; or rather it is one comprehensive blunder they have made in supporting an utterly impossible theory of Church Letters, instead of attending to the curious phenomena themselves.

The explanation that I have given removes all difficulties and covers all cases, so far as I know. Here you have a knot of men, or round table, presided over in all probability by one or two or a few directors. They have plotted, and are executing a system of fiction. The method is to write down short sentences, to place them in imaginary mouths, to call them "testimonies," to put dates to them, and then to quote them as if they were authoritative and external to themselves. The whole thing is perfectly transparent to the attentive student. Any writer of even moderate skill in fiction could construct a story with a considerable number of characters, who should all be made in one way or another to be interested in a set of ideas or in a common story, whether as believers or as unbelievers, supporters or opponents. A great impression may thus be produced upon the reader, even though he is aware that he is dealing with fiction. But where, as in the case of this Church History, the representations made have been announced as the greatest and most awful truths, and a mighty organisation has been supporting them, the impression has become all but irresistible, for any except the awakened and sceptical inquirer.

The Plot of the Epistles: The "Unutterable and Unuttered Things."

If my readers cannot at present follow me in my assertion of the late origin of Church literature, at least they will understand, if they follow me in these particulars, that the current and common theories of that literature are absurd, and must be abandoned. But let me now briefly give the statements of the Church History in reference to the alleged literary activity of. Paul, and the Epistles which these monks chose to place under his name.

Now, here the remarkable statement arrests attention and it is twice made -- that Paul's Epistles were very, short. One of these passages is to the effect that Paul, the most able of all in literary discipline, and the most sufficient in opinions, "committed no more than the briefest epistles to writing, though he had a multitude of matters -- yea, unutterable things to say, as he had attained to the visions of the third heaven, had been snatched up to the very paradise of God, and had been deemed worthy to listen to the unutterable words thence." (H. E. 3:24)

I must entreat my readers not to fall in with the false notion that this passage is an echo of a passage in the Epistles as we have them. That is the reverse of the fact. I must repeat, every chapter of this Church History proves that it is written as an introduction to romantic books not yet fully written, or more than in their inception, and which had not yet been designated by the name of the New Testament, though a similar term is employed.

Now, everyone knows that a similar passage to the above is found inserted in our second Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 12 -- a passage shockingly written in point of grammar, and every principle of good taste, even as the passage in the Church History. But it will be found, on comparison, that the one passage is not copied from the other, though both are evidently from the same mind. It is impossible to draw any other conclusion than that the two passages, substantially one in meaning, though variant in form, are from the same workshop of monastic fiction.

We now come to another passage in a chapter on what are called the "testamentary writings" or books; which phrase prepares the way for the designations, "Old and New Testament," not yet, as it seems, invented. Now, here again it is the great "Origen" who is called upon as a mock witness to the literary activity of Paul. They name this imaginary illustrious man Adamantius, or again Chalkenteros, the "brazen bowelled;" and Hardouin has detected the jest in these appellations, as hinting allegorically the hard toil which these literary monks had undertaken in support of their lies and fabrications. For my part, my heart softens a little towards them when I see them smiling at one another, and deriding the credulity of the world!

Well, they make their "Origen" say, respecting the Epistles of the Apostles: "He that was made sufficient to become a minister of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit, Paul, who fulfilled the Gospel from Jerusalem, even in a cycle as far as Illyricum, did not write to all the Churches which he taught; but to those to whom he did write he sent a few lines." (H.E. 6:25)

Again, if the reader will compare for himself the passage in 2 Corinthians iii. 6, he will see that the thought about the "minister of the New Testament" is the same; but there has been no copying in the ordinary sense of the word. It has been arranged that Paul shall be so described; and in the Epistle which is contained in the book called "The Apostle" he is duly made so to describe himself. The expression, "New Testament," does not here mean a collection of books, but is equivalent to new covenant.

Now, why is it so emphatically said that there were only very short Epistles of Paul extant? The intelligent reader who studies the book for himself, and refuses to allow his mind to be bewildered by misguided editors, sees at once that this Church historian, or these monkish romancers, cannot by any possibility be speaking of the Pauline Epistles in our hands. If the book called "The Apostle" actually existed, it must have been a very thin affair. If, on the other hand, it was in process of compilation, it was designed that it should be of very small bulk, and it seems as if a warning were given against accrediting any larger epistle as Paul's. I suspect it was known that some writing was going on destined to be placed under the name of Paul, which it might not be convenient to recognise as genuine.

Paul Is Represented as a Very Wonderful Man, That Interest Might Be Excited about the Epistles

So far, then, the design is evident: to fix the Ideal of Paul in the minds of the faithful as a very extraordinary and very wonderful person, who had had the most astounding adventures in heaven, had seen and heard things denied to the eyes and ears of ordinary mortals, which he could not possibly relate when he came back again. A truly great man, so rich beyond comparison in intellectual power; yet so unwilling or so reluctant a penman, he left only a "few lines" behind him! Let us see if there is any further light on this literary riddle and profound practical joke. (H. E. 3:3 and 25)

It is stated that Paul's Epistles were fourteen in number; but doubts are cast on the authorship of that to the Hebrews, and rambling talk upon this subject is put into the mouth of the imaginary "Origen." Those who have studied the peculiar arts and crafts of these literary monks (but they are few) may be aware that they never throw doubt upon their own compositions without a motive. When they trouble their readers' minds about the genuineness of this or that document, they mean to trouble them. The design, on the part of the masters of the literary situation, is to make books of great importance, or to discredit them as it may be convenient, which policy has been so characteristic of the Catholic Churchmen to our own day.

Not content with throwing doubt on the Hebrews, they must need set down "apocryphal acts" to the name of Paul; they must invent a sect who disliked Paul and rejected his Epistles -- nay, two sects who did this. So that in the end we are thoroughly puzzled to know what this incomprehensible person was like, and what were the notes he scribbled to his Churches. Is it not time that cultivated readers should inquire into the purport of all this intolerable nonsense and absurdity?

To understand the design of these tricksters, we must interrogate ourselves, and ask, What is the impression that is produced upon our imagination if we take these tales to be true? Is it not, as I have before said, that this Paul was the most obscure and incomprehensible of men and of writers that ever lived? And does not this lead to curiosity and bewildered study, and results which bring no satisfaction and no repose? Yes; nor can I acquit the monastic faction of the deliberate intention thus to dazzle and divert and bewilder the world. But we must lay some blame on our own weakness, our soft and yielding credulity!

Now, after all, can this little Apostle or book of Paul's Epistles be produced? Perhaps it can, or something like it; and there may have been several enlargements before they reached the bulk in which we possess them. The reader who follows me in the study of the Church History will certainly be convinced that not a word of it is based upon the New Testament; that, on the contrary, there are many things in it not to be found in the New Testament at all. The New Testament is based on the plan laid down in the History; and both on the Symbol. And, in reference to the Pauline Epistles in particular, I think I can give a rough idea of the original slight draft of the Pauline matter. One cannot but be reminded of the parturition of the mountain and the birth of the mouse.

Epistle to the Romans -- "According to my Gospel." The Church historian ascribes this phrase to Paul in order to allege that when he used it he alluded to Luke's Gospel. Accordingly we find the phrase thrice inserted in the New Testament: Romans 2:16, 16:25, and 2 Timothy 2:8.

"The sufferings of the present season are not worthy to be compared with the glory to. be revealed unto us." This passage occurs in the Church History in connection with a tale of persecution under Verus. It is not quoted from Paul, nor alleged to be. But we find something very like it in our Romans 8:18.

Then the thrice-repeated phrase about journeying "from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum" we find reproduced in Romans 15:19.

Proper Names Are Anxiously Inserted

Lastly, the Church historian says that, in the salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul makes mention of "Hermas," alleged author of "The Shepherd;" and, sure enough, "Hermas" duly makes his appearance in Romans 16:14.

Positively it appears, from the absence of any other reference, as if they had written under the heading, "Epistle to the Romans," little but this allusion to Hermas, whose alleged work, they say, is disputed. Hermas' name is also on the list of the "Illustrious."

It may appear ridiculous to those unversed in these studies to say that the first thing to be done in sketching an Epistle was to insert some proper names. But it is done in other cases, and evidently for the purpose of keeping up the illusion. They must have a sufficient number of proper names of alleged companions of the apostle, otherwise the historical theory is not kept up. The like is still more true of the History, which is crowded with them.

Thus the historian gives the hint, in a chapter (H. E. 1:12) on "The Disciples of our Saviour," how some of the names are to be introduced into the books of the New Testament, which have yet to be written.

He says there is no list of "the Seventy" extant; but "Barnabas" is said to have been one of them, and his name will be found in divers places in the Acts of the Apostles, and especially in Paul, when he writes to the Galatians. Another was Sosthenes, who wrote to the Corinthians along with Paul. We duly find those names in our Epistles: Galatians 2:1, 1 Corinthians 1:1. We have all been deceived by them, unaware that they have been pleaded there in compliance with a scheme of literary fiction. Strip these names away, and what are the Epistles worth?

The Bare Plan of the Epistles Is Only To Be Discovered in the Church History

1 Corinthians

But my present business is to impress upon the reader that this first Church historian most certainly knew nothing but a few lines of the Pauline Epistles, or of any of the "testamentary" books. He calls Paul to witness that, "after the resurrection, the Saviour was seen by Kephas first, then by the Twelve, and, after them, by more than five hundred brethren at the same time; of whom some had fallen asleep, but the greater part were still living at the time he composed these things. Then he was seen by James, who was one of those called brothers of the Savour." He adds that, besides these, Paul, as if in imitation of the Twelve Apostles, he being also an apostle, continues: "Afterwards he was seen by all the Apostles."

The ordinary reader, abetted in the delusion by clerical apologists, supposes that this must be quoted from 1 Corinthians xv. 5. It is absolutely not so! The Epistle is not named, and the comparison of the two passages again excludes any other opinion than that 1 Corinthians has been built up around this slight fabric of personal names, and primarily in order to imbed and preserve those names.

In the last book of the History we find the saying, "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard," and so on, referred to as a martyr hymn. It is not quoted from any source whatever. We find it inserted in 1 Corinthians 2:9. There is something like the expression, "coveting earnestly the best gifts," in a passage in the historian; but again no allusion to any Epistle.

2 Corinthians

It is the like case with regard to a Corinthians. One of the main objects here, as I have already pointed out, was to imbed the favourite phrase of the Pauline legend: "From Jerusalem round about to Illyricum." Very little else can have been written of that Epistle.

The monks put into the mouth of their wondrous "Origen" the saying, that the style of the Epistle to the Hebrews has not the peculiarity of the Apostle,, who confessed that he was "idiot in speech" (rude of speech) -- that is, in phrase -- while the Epistle to the Hebrews is of better Greek composition. Accordingly, we duly find this alleged confession inserted in a muddled passage (2 Corinthians 11:6).

At first sight it looks as if they, must have had the Epistle to the Hebrews already written; but that is not the case. And one can only infer that the task of writing that Epistle had been assigned to a Greek scholar a little more skilled than the rest of the Epistlers. These things must have been written with a smile.

We read in another place in the History: "I am in danger of really falling into much folly and Stupidity, being forced to relate the wondrous dispensation of God concerning us." The Greek is shocking; but the unwary reader thinks he listens to an echo of something in Paul (2 Corinthians 11:1, 17, 23 [disambiguate verse numbers]). Again, it is absolutely, not so; the words are put into the mouth of a certain bishop. I will not trouble the reader with his name and alleged date, When we hear these echoes, we must try to detect the quarter whence the sound first came. It came neither from this nor that fantastic figure-head, but from the voices of these literate monks, who were more intent upon crowding the memory with a mass of alleged apostolic names than upon anything useful or edifying to the public.

Epistle to the Galatians

I come to the Epistle to the Galatians. The phenomena are quite similar. In a chapter which romances on the career of the Apostles after the Ascension, the historian concludes: "After these Paul, the vessel of election, not of men, nor through men, but through revelation of Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, is shown to be an apostle; deemed worthy of the calling through a vision and the voice from Heaven according to the revelation."

You find these pretensions put into the mouth of Paul himself in Galatians i. 1ff and elsewhere. But the Eusebian passage is one of the most important, being the brief argument of the whole Pauline career, as it was arranged for development by various scribes in the secrecy of the cloisters.

Again, the primary object in composing this Epistle was to imbed a part of the great system of romance disclosed in the so-called History. They want to fix the ideal of James the Just in the minds of the religious. Therefore they say: "Paul makes mention of him they say not where writing: Other of the apostles I saw not, except James, the Brother of the Lord." (H. E. 2:1) You find this sentence duly set down in an Epistle, Galatians 1:19. It is hardly correct to say that it has been inserted in the Epistle. The Epistle, as usual an incoherent composition, has been framed to embody the historical sentences. The like remarks apply to the mention of "Barnabas" in the second chapter, and to Kephas, who is described expressly in the History as a different person from Peter.

In the romance of the "Martyrs of Palestine," bound up with the History, the saying; "The Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother," is attributed to Paul, without reference to any Epistle. We find it with an addition in Gal. 4:25.

Epistle to Philippians

I come to the Epistle to the Philippians. The remarkable theological sentence occurs twice in tales of martyrs, "Christ, who, being in the form of God, did not think equality with God a thing of rapine (H. E. 5:2; 8:10) (again most crude Greek); but there is no allusion to Paul's authorship; on the contrary, it is assigned to other writers. We find it repeated under the name of Paul, Philippians 2:6. It is simply a blunder, due to ignorance of the facts, not to see that the passage is original in the Church History -- that is, in the mind of the monastic theologians. (H. E. 3:4 and 15)

The Anxiety to Establish the Apostolical Succession

In the chapter of the first succession of the Apostles, and in one on Clement of Rome, we find, as usual, the evidence of the plot. This is the romance or pseudo-historical sentence which has to be attested by the great Paul: "Clement himself, appointed third bishop of the Church of Romans, is witnessed by him to have been fellow-labourer and fellow-athlete of Paul."

You duly discover that Paul is made to say this, Philippians 4:3; but the "fellow-athlete" is left out. Whatever you may remember or may forget of the contents of this Epistle, you will not be likely to forget Clement; and, if you remember Clement, you have in mind the grand theory of the Roman Apostolic Succession. How charming to discover that what seems a passing allusion, or one of Paley's "undesigned coincidences," is really studied, for this very purpose of impressing the Roman idea upon you. And what a curious thing that Clement should have written a "great and wondrous "Epistle to the Corinthians, (H.E. 3:16) which has not found its way into the canon. However, there is no more to be said about the Epistle to the Philippians, except that it cannot have been written at the time of the Eusebian writer, with the exception of the solitary sentence about "Clement and the rest of my fellow-labourers, whose names are in the book of life."

Epistle to the Colossians

Precisely the same phenomenon presents itself in the case of the Epistle to the Colossians. Our monks write down a very brief plot of the trial of Paul by Felix and by Festus, to be developed by the artists of the Acts of the Apostles, and of Paul being led prisoner to Rome. They then add this sentence: "Aristarchus went with him, whom he justly calls his fellow-captive somewhere in the Epistles." We duly find that Paul is made to own Aristarchus, in Colossians 4:10. But actually the romancing monk at the time of his writing has not a line more of the Colossians written; he has not decided in which of the schemed Epistles that allusion to Aristarchus is to be written, which aids the believer to accept the theory of Paul's Roman adventures. There is nothing more to be said of the Epistle to the Colossians than that, like the rest, it has been advertised before a solitary line of it was written. Many of the monastic books have been advertised as written which never were written at all.

Epistle to Timothy

Nor is there the slightest sign that the First Epistle to Timothy has been written. There is a phrase something like "thinking godliness a means of gain," but in quite another reference.

Second Epistle to Timothy

The Second Epistle appears to have been the first planned. And once more the design was to make it confirm, as it were, in that vague, allusive way which made so much impression on Paley and others, the romance of Paul's life and suffering. The Eusebian -- I mean the literary director of the scribes -- says: "Paul, held in bonds, composes the Second Epistle to Timothy, signifying at the same time his former defence and his immediate decease. Receive his testimonies of these things: `In my first defence,' he says, `no one was on any side, but all deserted me (may it not be reckoned to them!); but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, that through me the preaching might be felled, and call the nations might hear, and I was rescued out of the lion's mouth."'

The Eusebian then tells us that the lion means Nero he knows more than Paul is made to say in 2 Timothy 4. This chapter is remarkable for the designed coincidences with other parts of the system of fiction. There is introduced the name of Linus, the object being, as before, to fix in the reader's mind the idea of the Roman Apostolical Succession. (H.E.. 3:2) Compare the chapter in the Church History (consisting of three and a half lines) with 2 Timothy 4:21. In some of the manuscripts of the Church History there is this addition, ascribed to the pen of Paul: "Salutes thee, saying, Eubulus and Pudens and Linus and Claudia."

The Eusebian director is master of the situation. He knows what to tell his servile scribes to do. He reminds us of a celebrated French novelist of our time, who was said to have dictated to seven amanuenses at once. "The plot, the historical setting, is the main thing," we hear him saying. "You can fill up the Epistles with any theological and ethical padding you will; the more obscure and self-contradictory the better. All will enhance the impression that Paul was a wonderful, a very wonderful, a stupendous and incomprehensible man." But the clever director laboured under some disadvantage, because, though he had some good Latin scribes, he had not a good staff of Greek scribes, and perhaps he did not understand Greek himself.

I have already referred to the fact that the phrase which the director is anxious to make Pauline, "According to my Gospel," was written under the heading of Second Epistle to Timothy, as also under the heading of "Epistle to the Romans," with the object of advertising Luke's Gospel. Paul and Luke are ever inseparable!

Paul Is Surrounded by Troops of Imaginary Friends and Followers, or Foes, and Thus the Impression of His Greatness Is Enhanced

But I have not done with the wonderful fourth chapter of Second Epistle to Timothy. Our Eusebian director, so anxious about his Apostolic Succession, will have some more names put into the Epistles. Paul must have "followers," otherwise he will be a Nobody! Therefore the Idol of the monasteries must be made to point to other little idols surrounding him. In other words, Paul is made to witness to Crescens (or, in Greek, Kriskes), who was sent into Gaul (or the Gauls, in Greek). See, my readers, 2 Timothy 4:10. It is, perhaps, a Frenchman, or a man much interested in France, who puts this little brick into the structure.

Epistle to Titus

And now about the Epistle to Titus. I must simply say that our Eusebian literary director has not got this Epistle written; certainly not. Dictating some nonsense about Polycarp,[xvii] he observes: "Paul said, a heretic after one and a second admonition reject, knowing that such an one is perverted, and sins, self-condemned." (H. E. 4:14)

Duly this has been written down as the basis of the Titus Epistle; and I have already hinted that the first heretic to whom we can suppose the saying to have been applied was the author of the Lutheran schism, There is nothing more to be said of the Epistle to Titus.

After this review, I may add that perhaps the innocentlooking, unoffending fourth chapter of 2 Timothy, with its string of names of the alleged friends of Paul, offers one of the best clues to the understanding of the whole question. Here is Paul, the Roman martyr, writing in an affecting (or affected) manner of his approaching decease, and giving a list of the names of his friends to his beloved Timothy Demas, and Crescens, and Titus, and Luke, and Mark, and Tychicus, and Corpus; also of his enemy, Alexander the coppersmith, whom he execrates; again, of his friends, Prisca, and Aquila, and Onesiphorus, and Erastus, and Trophimus, and Eubulus, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, together with an uncounted number of "brethren."

We must fairly acknowledge the dramatic ability displayed in all this. The hero of a drama must attract to himself all manner of distinguished and undistinguished persons; must be well loved and hated well; he must, in short, be a personality, and a very interesting personality; otherwise the play will be a failure.

The plot of the Pauline legend has been so contrived that a variety of lesser lights appear to sparkle round this great luminary of the ecclesiastical firmament. Books have been written for the mere purpose of ascertaining the personality of these minor characters, so incidentally named in the Timothean Epistle. Although the Pauline Epistles cannot for a moment be compared in point of interest and value with splendid works which were produced not far from the same epoch -- the works that pass under the name of Dante and of Chaucer -- how much greater pains have been taken to magnify the personality and to extend the renown of Paul!

How little do people reflect on the immense power of the greatest literary organisation in our world of the West, the organisation that we call the Church, either to exalt its favoured personalities, or to depress and to cover with ignominy its detested foes!

Expunge the names of Paul and his friends from these Epistles, and attend merely to the matter; what have you but desultory, rambling, incoherent sentences upon mystical matters, which do not read well in Latin or in French or in English, and very badly in Greek; and which, in any language, it is doubtful whether any man of taste has ever perused with pleasure!

I have not exhausted the teaching of the first Church History on the Pauline question, because my programme confines me to the Pauline Epistles, and the legends of Paul's life in the Acts must be treated as an independent literary production. I will therefore simply say that the student who examines the Church History with the object of ascertaining the nature of the interesting legends called Acts of the Apostles will discover that this work of art has been planned strictly in accordance with the principle of the Creed and of the Service Book, in order to establish and confirm, by a variety of personal narratives, the idea of a personal Saviour and his disciples, who are alleged to have been the founders of that magnificent Christian Empire, which I know to have been the creation of certain bands of men of the sword and of the pen, whose origin I cannot possibly trace higher than the epoch of about four hundred years ago.

There is no older Christian book that I can discover than the Church History. But the nature of the book has hitherto been misconceived, though it has been again and again in part discredited. It is the foundation-stone of the whole system. The New Testament has been written upon its lines. It is the proper introduction to the New Testament. It is simply a work of theological art, the object being to assert the Creed and support it by alleged ancient "testimonies," which prove to be a string of inventions. Persons, places, times, all are fictitious. When we dispel this cloud of romance, and ask for the home of the romancers, we find ourselves in one of the great monasteries of the Order of St. Benedict, possibly that of St. Germain's or St. Denis (Dionysius the Areopagite), Paris. The occurrence of the name Germanus in the History is curious, and seems to me to hint of the former abbey. But certainly same monastery of the West was the workshop, and certainly there was a "Round Table" of literary directors, and a circulation of the same books and ideas in all the monasteries of the order. Paul, his life and letters, are distinctly the creation of this literary faction. And the work was going on during the early Reformation time.

Summary

To sum up so far. I have detected and disclosed to the reader the first edition of the Pauline romance. He must be martyr-founder of the Roman Church. He must be a converted Jew, not necessarily learned, but wondrously converted, by no human means, by vision and voice from heaven. He must have been into the third heaven itself, and must have heard unutterable things. He must have been a missionary preacher from Jerusalem to Illyricum. Yet he must have written very little; but he must have made many allusions to persons, his companions and disciples; he must have in this way established the dogma of the Roman Apostolic Succession.

My opinion is that the monks could not, under the controversies which prevailed, write any theology under the patronage of the extraordinary man whom they had created, adequate to his alleged wonderful faculties; and that with timidity they guarded themselves by the statement that Paul had written only a few lines. It would be always possible to say to sectarians, "This is not Paul's writing!"

One cannot refrain from a smile at the little devices by which it is made to appear that Paul was not much of a penman. In one case an amanuensis, "Tertius," a third person, as one might say, is alleged, Romans 16:22. In another place Paul is made to say expressly that he has written, on a private affair, "in his own hand" (Philippians 1:19); as if he was not used to such effort!

And this notion is kept up by the statement in another place, that he has written to the Galatians in large, and presumably clumsy, letters, like a rustic (Galatians 6:11).

Modern critics apologise for the ragged and incorrect style of the Epistles on the supposition that Paul dictated. They were intended to do so; but the fact that such hasty and ill-digested compositions were ever allowed to be published in the name of the Church is that which needs explanation.

It is cleverly hinted by the monkish artists that he did add something as a token to every dictated Epistle, 2 Thessalonians 3:17. And it is further hinted (2 Thessalonians 2:2) that spurious letters were forthcoming in his name, which made such a practice necessary.

Other examples of this device are to be found in 1 Corinthians 16:21-24 and Colossians 4:18.

Suppose this to be the intended explanation of the statement that Paul wrote only a few lines, the motive is still generally the same -- to excuse the wretched composition of the Epistles, and to find a way of escape from the sharp edge of criticism directed either against the style or the matter.

Chapter 4: Paul the "Illustrious Man"

Paul the "Illustrious," Formerly Saul

I must now direct the attention of my readers to another small book, which is of equal importance to the first Church History, but which has never been properly studied and understood, so far as I can ascertain, by my predecessors in this field of inquiry.

I refer to the first List of "Illustrious Men" set forth under the names of "Jerome" and of "Gennadius." In speaking of this List, I must either raise the whole question of Church literature once more from the beginning, or I must ask my readers to assume with me that it belongs, like the Church History, to the Revival of Letters. I will take the latter course.

In fact, every argument I have used in respect to the modernity of the Church History applies with equal force to the List of "Illustrious Men." Every part, both of the external and the internal evidence, proves the book to be the production of the same monastic faction, to which in substance, though with designed variations, it corresponds.

It has been pointed out by historians like Ranke, l'Aubigne, and others who have dealt with the early sixteenth-century literature, that there were sceptics in the seats of culture, who denied that Church Story "rested upon genuine testimony," and who asserted that it was a contrivance of "saintly trickery." It appears to have been in recognition of these opinions that the Preface to the List of the alleged "Illustrious Men" was written.

No matter for the moment when the List was drawn up. The Preface must be disgusting to every man of taste. No one with an ear for sincerity in the tone of thought could be deceived by a manifesto like this. When the monks' manner is once understood, you will recognise here an indirect confession of all that I have alleged on other grounds, to the effect that the Church had no literature at the time of the Revival of Letters, and that it was necessary to construct a literature on lines laid down in some old Latin and Greek writers, especially in a list of illustrious writers ascribed to Suetonius.

It is admitted that nothing of the kind has been before attempted except by "Eusebius Pamphili" in the ten books of his Church History. The catalogue of orators in Cicero's "Brutus" has also been used as a model.

The Romance Is Further Developed

It is indirectly admitted also that there are certain persons who deny that the Church had any philosophers, eloquent men, or doctors; but these persons are, in compliance with the system, referred back to the alleged fourth century, and are called "Celsus, Porphyry, Julian, mad dogs against Christ." All the tales about these alleged adversaries have come from the same mint with the rest. The literary monks felt that it would never answer their purpose to tell a one-sided tale, or fail to show how the system had triumphed over opposition in the alleged ancient times.

It is indirectly admitted that there were those who accused "our faith" of "rustic simplicity;" and this catalogue is to be flourished in the face of the learned world to show the large number of great men who founded, built up, and adorned the faith. The whole may thus be regarded, in connection with a mass of other evidence, as a statement of facts, though in false form, in relation to the books in the monasteries during the early Tudor period (which starts in 1485). It corresponds nearly to what I have found, by very careful examination, of the report of John Leland's literary tour, which is said to have been made during the period 1533-1539.

Now, upon this List the fifth name is that of "Paul, formerly Saul." Thus in the name, and in other particulars, we have a new edition, with variations, of the brief romance of Paul. It is neither copied from the Eusebian Church History, nor from the New Testament, nor from any other source. It is simply an expansion of the plot laid down in the Eusebian system. The writer calls himself, no doubt for some purpose of identification among the faction, Eusebius Hieronymus, or Jerome. The plot has now assumed this form:

The Vessel of Election; The Apostle of the Nations

"Paul apostle, who was before Saul' was outside the number of the Twelve Apostles; he was of the tribe of Benjamin and of the town of Judaea, Giscalis. When it was taken by the Romans, he removed with his parents to Tarsus of Cilicia. Sent by them for the study of the law to Jerusalem, by Gamaliel, a very learned man of whom Luke makes mention, he was taught. But, after he had been present at the murder of the martyr Stephen, he received letters from the pontiff of the temple to pursue those who had believed in Christ, and proceeded to Damascus. Compelled by revelation to the faith which is described in the Acts of the Apostles, he was translated from a persecutor into the Vessel of Election. When first Sergius Paulus, pro-consul of Cyprus, had believed at his preaching, he got his name from him, because he had subjected him to the faith of Christ; and, taking Barnabas with him, he travelled through many cities, and, returning to Jerusalem, was ordained Apostle of the nations (gentium) by Peter, James, and John.

"And because in the Acts of the Apostles there is a very full description of his conversation, I will only say this, that after the passion of the Lord in the year 25 -- that is, in the second [year] of Nero, at the time when Festus, procurator of Judaea, succeeded Felix, he was sent bound to Rome, and, for two years remaining in full custody, he disputed against the Jews daily, concerning the advent of Christ. But you must know that, in his first satisfaction, Nero's rule not being yet strengthened, and he not breaking out into the great wickedness related of him in story, Paul was dismissed by Nero, in order that the Gospel of Christ might be preached also in the parts of the West, as he himself writes in the Second to Timothy at the time when he suffered; and, concerning his bonds, he dictates the Epistle:

'In my first satisfaction no one was with me, but all left me; may it not be laid to their charge! But God was with me and comforted me, that by me the preaching might be fulfilled, and all nations might hear; and I was delivered from the mouth of the lion,' most manifestly signifying Nero as the lion, because of his cruelty. And in the following:

'The Lord delivered me from every evil work, and made me safe in his heavenly kingdom,' because, that is, he felt his present martyrdom imminent; for in the same Epistle he had premised:

'For I am now being immolated, and the time of my resolution is at hand.'

"And he therefore, in the fourteenth year of Nero, on the same day with Peter, was beheaded for Christ's sake, and was buried in the Ostian way, after the Passion of the Lord XXXVIII."

This Latin legend is, as a legend, complete and satisfactory, and gives hints for expansion in the Acts of the Apostles, which must, in my opinion, have been in course of composition at the time, under the supervision of the literary director. There is no mention of Giscalis in the Acts; and the striking and all-impressive legend of the martyrdom is designedly omitted from that book, which ends in a manner strangely abrupt. The conjectures by way of explaining this phenomenon have all been futile. The simplest explanation that suggests itself to my mind is that some mere pressure upon the compilers, some haste to complete and publish, may have led to the omission of the legend, which, if told at all, must be told in an elaborate manner. The first hint about the preaching in the West has been supported by an allusion to Spain, and there is a Catholic legend which represents Paul as coming to England, and looking down upon London from the height of Highgate Hill.

Paul the Martyr, and Paul the Vessel of Election, is still the ideal; and the opinion is confirmed that the short passage alluding to the trial and martyrdom was written under the heading of Second Timothy, with the view of fixing that idea in the minds of the faithful. But the omission of all mention of Nero and the martyrdom from the Acts is one of those accusing facts which should have long ago led thorough critics to suspicion that something was wrong in the whole system of the books. However, the main point I desire to insist upon is that the long, elaborate Pauline legend of the Acts has been built upon the foundation plotted in a desultory fashion in the Church History, and given more compactly in the List of Illustrious Men.

Revised Theory of the Epistles

But now, what does this literary director say concerning the Epistles?

Paul "wrote nine Epistles to the seven churches: to the Romans one, to the Corinthians two, to the Galatians one, to the Ephesians one, to the Philippians one, to the Colossians one, to the Thessalonians two; besides to his disciples, to Timothy two, to Titus one, to Philemon one. The Epistle which is addressed to the Hebrews is not believed to be his, because of the dissonance of style and of language; but whether of Barnabas, according to Tertullian, or of Luke the evangelist, according to certain others, or Clement, afterwards Bishop of the Roman Church, who, they say, arranged and adorned the Sentences of Paul in his own language, or, indeed, because Paul wrote to the Hebrews, and, because of hatred to himself among them, cut off the title of his name at the beginning of the salutation -- he wrote as a Hebrew in Hebrew, that is most eloquently in his own speech -- Clement turned those things which were eloquently written in Hebrew more eloquently into Greek, and this was the cause why it seems to differ from the rest of Paul's Epistles." A very involved sentence!

"Some read the Laodiceans, but by all it is exploded"? The two Eusebii are, then, closely coherent in their statements on this point. They take a positive delight in keeping the minds of their readers in a state of oscillation on this Hebrews question. They want you to believe it Paul's; and yet to believe it to be of another authorship. It may be they were guarding themselves against criticism and detection by appearing to make this frank avowal, that "God only knows who wrote" the Epistle. It has, no doubt, that effect upon the unwary reader. It may be they feared the censure from some learned Jewish scholar "This book never was written, nor could be written, by a genuine Hebrew!"

Yet it may be nothing more than the desire to keep the reader in a state of suspense and trouble which has dictated all these deliberate inventions, as they undoubtedly are. He knows nothing at all of monastic ethics who is not aware that prevarication is essentially part of them. Paul himself, as we shall see, is held up to admiration as a grand prevaricator. Absolute statements are never to be made; the yea-nay or shilly-shally principle is ever to be followed. "Did Paul write Hebrews?" "Yes and no." "What do you mean?" "The style is not his, but the thoughts are! Yet, perhaps, somebody else was the author; God only knows!"

Meantime one advantage derived from these devices was that the interest, the wonder, and the mystery surrounding the literary Paul were always kept alive and growing. Luther would not have the Pauline authorship of Hebrews; and there was no overt criticism until Luther's time. But no one is said to have asked the radical question, Was there any such person as Paul, except in the artistic consciousness of the monasteries? Consequently profitless debates on this question have gone on to the present day.

There are no quotations from this Epistle in the Church History, but there are just three passages which resemble passages in the Hebrews; and of one of these Paul is said to be the author, without further reference. The actual framer of the Epistle appears to have desired to insinuate that Paul was the author, by introducing the name of Timothy in the last chapter.

With regard to the name of Saul, that has been borrowed from the Old Testament, as appropriate to the ex-persecutor. He is said to be a Benjaminite for the same reason, and because Benjamin "in the morning ravined like a wolf." The desire to make Paul a thorough Jew, and yet a thorough Roman, is apparent in other additions. But every attentive student must perceive that this brief notice would not have been necessary if the Acts, in their present bulk, bad been generally known, and the silence about Giscalis had been remarked.

The Pauline Legend Is Allegorical of the Church Theory of Her Origin

If we compare this cold, brief notice of Paul as an Illustrious Doctor of the Church with the elaborated pictures of the Acts, we see that there has been for some reason great interest felt by the artists in labouring this ideal. On the List Paul is no more illustrious than any of the rest; while in the New Testament his commanding personality is made to dominate the whole Christian world. Clearly it is the Roman interest which here operates. The Church cannot get on without the Martyr-Founders, Peter and Paul. And, when once she had determined to make Paul the greatest of early doctors, the most eloquent and profound of all, there arose the necessity to devote a fuller attention to him, or a less attention to other of the "Illustrious." But there are hints that at one time it was designed to make a great ideal of James as bishop of Jerusalem; for his romance seems more affecting in its early sketch than that of Paul. In short, when we say that Paul is the Ideal of Rome and of the West, we point to the all-paramount influence of the Latin or Roman Catholic Church. The life, Westward career, and the death of Paul in the metropolis are an allegory, not of the true story of Church origins, but of that which the monks wished us to believe was the true story of those origins.

I have now dealt, I hope sufficiently, with the two important key-books to Church history, and the system of what I call the monastic Round Table. It is from want of knowledge of these key-books, and the relation in which they stand to the New Testament, as containing the sketch-plot of the great ecclesiastical romance, that modern critics have entirely failed to touch the roots of the Pauline problem.

Substantially they are one book, and yield evidence of the probability that the primary scheme was the offspring of one inventive brain, who directed the execution of the earlier parts of it. It is quite true, as our scholars say and know, that these books are "the indispensable mine of materials for the history of the Canon, and the rise of the particular books in it." But they are mistaken both as to the date and the nature of these key-books. They are Renaissance books; there is not a particle of ancient testimony in them; they reveal throughout a system of art and craft, which was so strongly buttressed by endless repetitions and. variations that it imposes upon those who do not reflect that simple, straightforward, unvarying statements need no such repetitions to commend them to our judgment and our conscience. The Canon is not a monument of witnessed antiquity, but of modern monastic artifice.

Chapter 5: The Structure of the Pauline Epistles as Seen in the Missal

Missal -- A prayer book for the Mass throughout the year.

Lection -- A reading from Scripture that forms a part of a church service.

Addresses and Salutations Serve to Fix the Historical Theory

Let me now briefly indicate that the structure of the Epistles fully bears out all that I have hitherto written on the mode of composition adopted by the monks, and revealed so plainly in the Eusebian works.

Let us take the Epistle to the Romans. It begins with the word Paul; it ends with a long string of names of saluted persons -- Phoebe, Priscilla, and Aquila, and so on, with appended hints of little personal romances about them, which excite curiosity, and all tend to enhance our sense of the grandeur and all-attractive power of the great apostolic personage. The artists, with their intense anxiety to secure this effect, have overdone their work. There are haste and clumsiness discernible, as in many other parts of the books. But, at all events, the effect is secured. Paul, with his troop of disciples and friends, is present to our fancy, and the illusion is complete! The like phenomena present themselves in following Epistles. The great object is to secure the hinted story in the vague imagination of the reader, to offer allusive glimpses of the great man on his travels "from Jerusalem round about to Illyricum," the host of friendships he had formed, the vast authority he had acquired! But the work is not well done. In Galatians these allusions are made in so obscure and slovenly a way, they are perfectly shocking to taste; and the reader who comes freshly to the perusal wilt exclaim, "No sane man could ever write an alleged letter like this." It is not a letter at all; it is a sort of cento of texts on different subjects woven into the mythological frame-work. More and more the utter nonsense of the opinion that books concocted in this fashion could have come down in constant use during a period of one thousand years is felt! In truth, the evidence which the whole printed Bible gives of hasty and illiterate composition is of itself one of the deadliest arguments against its antiquity. There must have been extreme eagerness on the part of the literary factions interested to rush their work, in order to secure some advantages of power and profit to themselves.

The Missal Used as a Key to the Structure of the Epistles: They Consist of Lections for the Feast Days

Returning to the Romans: the historical setting was secured, and the Roman Church duty recognised by the great apostle, with all its distinguished members. The next object was theological: to introduce the Creed, which is done by means of the short Lection 1:1-6 (Romans 1:1-6). There are many forms of the Creed, or Symbol, shorter or longer; they are frequently and on principle introduced; and the repetition of which some readers of the New Testament complain is the essential art of the composition. These epistles hey fall asunder, on analysis, into short lections (or lessons), which were written to explain and illustrate the anniversary feasts of the Church and the dogmas they commemorate. The Missal (the prayer book for the Mass throughout the year) is the key to the Epistles.

The Vigil of the Nativity

This Lection 1:1-6 (Romans 1:1-6) was written for the Vigil of the Nativity or Christmas day; the thought of the Advent of the divine son of David according to the flesh being present to the minds of the faithful.

Ember Saturday

The Lection Romans 5:1-5 was composed for Ember Saturday. "Brethren, being justified by faith, let us have peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ," and so on. The thought of the day is the outpouring of the spirit, based on Joel 2, and the Lection becomes emotional and musical in the Introit. "Charitas Dei difusa est in cordibus nostris, Alleluia!" [translate]

The following verses 6ff [?] do not read well as a continuation of this glowing outburst, which in fact they are not. They are a confused piece of theological reasoning, which irritates by its obscurity and want of coherence.

Feast of St. Ignatius

The Lection or short Epistle Romans 8:35-39 is a truly poetical outburst, a short hymn; but it does not seem to be clearly connected with the foregoing train of thought.

It is quite in its proper place on the feast of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr (one of the saints of the Benedictine system), where we find this martyr's song given as the Epistle of the day.

St. Andrew's Day

The Lection Romans 10:10-18 is the Epistle for St. Andrew's day, and is another musical passage perfectly appropriate to the praises of a preacher and ruler in the Church. But Romans 10 does not read well as a continuous argument.

Trinity Sunday

In chapter Romans 11 there is no particular coherence of the hymn-like outburst in verses Romans 11:33-36 with the preceding argument. But it is perfectly suitable as an Epistle for Trinity Sunday, which reminds the faithful of the mysterious nature of the Godhead.

First Sunday in Advent: Feast of St. Agatha

In chapter Romans 13 the Lection verses 11-14 is very ill-jointed to the preceding; but it is perfectly suited as an independent Epistle to the associations of the first Sunday in Advent (omitting the latter member of verse 14).

Second Sunday in Advent

Romans 15:4-13 is another original independent Lection or Epistle for second Sunday in Advent, complete in itself. Verse 14 does not continue well.

St. Agatha

In 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 there is a Lection hardly connected by strict logic with the preceding verses, but perfectly appropriate to be read on the feast of St. Agatha in its allusions to the weaker instruments or vessels of divine grace.

Fourth Sunday in Advent

1 Corinthians 4:1-5 is a Lection for the Fourth Sunday in Advent. The rest seems like rambling talk, in which, however, care is taken to introduce the names of Apollos and Timothy, with hints of apostolic sufferings.

Easter Sunday

1 Corinthians 5:7-8, on the old and new Leaven, is perfectly suitable for Easter Sunday, with its associations of a new year and a new moral beginning.

Corpus Christi (body of Christ)

The notable Lection 1 Corinthians 11:23-29, which contains the alleged apostolic tradition of the Eucharist and the doctrine of transubstantiation, seems very badly fitted in the place where it stands. The passage was amplified to fill up space. It is suitable to the solemnity of Corpus Christi, caro cibus, sanguis potus! ("Flesh is food, blood is drink.")

In 1 Corinthians 15:1-10 the object is to introduce a form of the Creed, and to represent Paul in accord with the Eusebian plot, as a "witness" of the resurrection. But how abrupt is the transition from the last verse of the preceding chapter; and how weakly followed by an attempt sophistically to argue what is said to have been proved by testimony.

Mass of Martyr and Bishop

2 Corinthians 1:3-7 is a Lection or little Epistle perfectly suited to the Mass of One Martyr and Bishop. But it is followed by a vague, rambling series of allusions to the theory of Paul's travels in Asia and Macedonia, and so on, with mention of his companions, which has the usual fabulous purpose in view. And the work is again most clumsily done, and is transparent sophistry, as we shall presently see.

Feast of St. Lucy

St. Lucy -- The same kind of artifice is observably in 2 Corinthians, chapter 11 10 17-11:1-2. [resolve verse numbers] is a Short Lection for the day of St. Lucy, and is imbedded amid more strange ravings about Paul's apostleship, and his relations to Macedonia and Achaia, and Damascus, and his romantic adventures in earth and heaven. Never was such a rigmarole imposed on the world in the name of an illustrious man before or since! And, if this were not enough, we have the Epistle to the Galatians inflicted on us; wherein, if any clear theological meaning can be detected or not, the pseudo-historical purpose clearly can be. But such was the haste of the scribe, he has not taken pains to harmonise himself with his colleagues, who were busy with the Acts of the Apostles. How many different Pauls may be detected in this strange medley?

The Epistle to the Ephesians reads infinitely better, and one imagines that a man in many respects good and sincere might have written some of these sentences. Care is taken, as usual, to introduce Paul's name as author (twice), with some of his ideal companions.

Feast of Our Holy Redeemer

A brief compendium of theology is Ephesians 1:3-9, which is an Epistle for the Feast of our Holy Redeemer.

Vigil of the Ascensio

Ephesians 4:1-6 is a brief description of the Catholic Church as one body. Ephesians 4:7-13 forms the proper Epistle for the Vigil of the Ascension.

Palm Sunday

Philippians 2:5-11 was originally written for Palm Sunday and the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross.

St. Paul, the First Hermit

In Philippians 3:7-12 we find a Lection for the day of St. Paul, the first Hermit, who is connected with St. Maur; both of them creations of the Benedictines. The passage breathes eloquently of that spirit of self-renunciation, and longing for "perfection," which so thoroughly betrays the discipline of monastic life. Occasion is taken to join to this a short pretended autobiography of Paul the Apostle. His personality is forced upon us at every turn, with that of the faithful shadow, Timothy.

Feast of St. Timothy

Day of St. Timothy -- Interesting is the Lection or little Epistle written for the day of St. Timothy himself (January 24th). See 1 Timothy 6:11-16. Here the opportunity is taken to introduce the mythology of the Creed, as it were incidentally: "Christ Jesus, who, before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession."

Christmas Day

The Lection, Titus 2:11-15, introduces a brief condensation of the Creed, with Titus 3:4-7, for reading on Christmas Day.

The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul

But it is the study of the service for the annual Feast of Saints Peter and Paul which teaches us the motive and the manner of these sentences, which were developed into little-Epistles, these little Epistles being developed into the larger Epistles as we now have them. One of the key-phrases to the meaning of the day is, "Thou shalt make them princes over all the earth." The prayer recites how by these martyrs "religion was begun." The key-word to the ideal of Peter is, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church," uttered in the Gradual, repeated in the Gospel and in the Communion. All the Petrine mythology is built upon that theory, which employs a pun for its justification (Pierre).

The Commemoration of St. Paul

In the Commemoration of St. Paul on the following day, June 30th, the Introit is the saying, "I know whom I have believed," and so on, which was inserted in 2 Timothy 1:12. The prayer recites his teaching of the multitude of the Gentiles. The Epistle is formed of the Lection, Galatians 1:11-20, which is one of the numerous fictitious autobiographies that these artists are so anxious to put into the mouth of Paul, with allusions to Jerusalem, Arabia, Damascus, and his fellow apostle, Peter, ending with the sanction, "Before God I lie not." Some further sentences of the kind occur in the Gradual.

The Conversion of St. Paul

Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul -- Again, on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, the legend is read from the Acts 9:1-22. The Gradual glorifies "The great St. Paul, the Vessel of Election, who deserved to possess the twelfth throne, Preacher of Truth, and Doctor of the Gentiles in faith and truth." He is inseparably associated with Peter, the holder of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Conclusion

After a review of the laborious efforts made to establish the idea of the joint founders of religion in Rome, the omission of the martyrdom from the Acts appears the more startling and inexplicable. However, it is clearly not a later, but an earlier invention; and the study of the Eusebian works and of the Missal (the prayer book for the Mass throughout the year) gives us a far better insight into the evolution of the whole Pauline system than the exclusive study of the New Testament can possibly yield.

There was a process of gradual construction. It was arranged that there should be fourteen Epistles, and that one should be held of doubtful authorship. Originally, perhaps from motives of haste and urgency, it was planned that the Epistles would be very short. At first, they were, consisting merely of slight autobiographical hints, allusions to persons and places, intended to create an illusion, to make the impression that Paul was a most extraordinary man.

But the matter grew; the statement about the very few lines was omitted; the autobiographical matter was increased; and theological and ethical matter suitable to the feasts was interspersed among it; and so the strange congeries (collection, aggregation, miscellaneous heap) known as the Pauline Epistles came into being. And the whole was ill done, in every respect of literary care and propriety; so that for a student to attempt to read through these patchworks as he would any other collection of letters, to ascertain what the writer is really driving at, is one of the most painful, irritating, disappointing, and hopeless tasks in the world. The structure is that of clumsy patchwork; it does not read like rational coherent thought, because it is not the coherent thinking of a single mind, but rather, is a collection of disparate and often conflicting views.

This false structure can be dissolved by analytically breaking it up, revealing a multitude of little, independent Epistles that are associated with the anniversary feasts of the Church [research the cycle of Church "feasts"], and which discovers also the few leading symbolic sentences, which contained the ideal of Paul as the inseparable fellow of Peter in the founding of the Roman Church. This is the only possible way to coherently understand and account for the extraordinary patchwork character of these notorious compositions, the Epistles of Paul.

When an indoctrinated person attends the Mass, and listens to the Gospel and the Epistle of the day, it feels like the whole authority of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church inspires and dictates every utterance; and every utterance of "the Lord" or of "the Apostle" is the more impressive in proportion as it is vague, sonorous, and musical.

If one looks and reads for oneself, although the reading is obscure and difficult, one is still imposed upon by the vague idea of the marvellous man with his marvellous autobiography, who could not be expected to write with a modicum of lucidity and common sense that one expects from ordinary men.

Therefore listening must be alternated with reading, to fully understand how theology was interwoven with history in the legend of Paul, and in the Pauline Epistles.

Chapter 6: The Pauline Epistles Analysed by the Aid of Cassian

Structure of the Pauline Epistles Discovered in "Cassian's Collations"

The ethical passages of the Epistles were built up on the system of Sentences. The work "The Collations of Cassian" was ascribed to one of the mock Illustrious, "Cassian". The Collations of Cassian was recommended for monastic reading in the Rule of St. Benedict. It was described as a "summary of true Christianity," as Bossuet [who?] says [where?], and by a perfect chorus of the same faction. The work cannot possibly have been composed before the early Tudor period (which starts in 1485). The bulky form of the present book and its good Latin indicate a likely composition date of the later sixteenth century (1550-1599). My copy is dated from the Vatican, 1588.

This work was appointed to be read aloud at mealtimes in the cloisters; and it gives us a clear insight into the discipline and habits of the monkish mind.

The collection of ethical texts ascribed to the "Blessed Apostle" was written to serve as the basis for a system of living which is fully explained in these Collations, or Dialogues, which are, as usual, ascribed to imaginary persons -- abbots of imaginary times and places in the East.

The Apostle Is Held Up as an Example of Pious and Charitable Mendacity

Many sentences were attributed to Paul, the "Blessed Apostle," to sanction and commend to imitation Apostolic mendacity, which was excused as justifying such literary arts and crafts. It's hard to escape the prejudices of our education, to understand how men who acquired so great an odour of sanctity, so great a reputation for "charity," were so reckless about distinguishing between truth and falsity.

The great literary Apostle, Paul, is from first to last a creation and fabrication of the monkish literary artists, designed to fill the minds of their readers with profound respect, admiration, and awe for the Person of Paul. They knew that if this reverence were accomplished, the written teaching attributed to Paul would be submissively received. I am writing not for those who accept something because a great man wrote it, but for those who look for the greatness of the writing itself first, and only if the writing is determined to be great, then the reader argues that the author was great. Judged by this test, there is nothing really great in the Pauline Epistles. When you join a monastic circle, and listen to these Collations, you find something actually better than the Epistles. In the Collations, which are more deserving of commendation then the Epistles, we have the mind of Paul, which "Paul" is made to say is the mind of Christ, unfolded from its germ-principles, and expanded into sermons, which are easier and more agreeable reading, though their repetitiveness is tedious.

The "venerable Apostle" Paul is made to sanction mendacity in the interests of "charity" and the salvation of men's souls. Here is the real meaning of the custodians of Paul's Epistles, and their only authoritative expounders: Collation 17, ascribed to "Abbot Joseph", is supposed to lead certain visitor-monks to his quiet seposit [?] cell, where they spend the whole sleepless night, their hearts burning within them at his discourse. They then quit the cell, and proceed to a place of session one hundred paces off: And the conversation begins afresh among these dejected sleepless ones!

Conducted in high-flown rhetorical Latin; with due interspersion of professional Greek, the conversation is very amusing in its way. These students of the "Perfect Life" are in a situation where, if they keep the solemn promise they had made, in the presence of all the brethren, to return to their own convent, they will incur detriment of the spiritual life. If, in the study of their "perfection," they remain in the society of the Abbot Joseph, they dread, on the other hand, the "abrupt perils of a lie." Here, then, men are placed in the most painful and impossible position in the world. They are students of the Perfect Life: that life demands fidelity to one's vows and promises; yet the suggestion is made that lying and faithlessness may be the means of greater profit to that very perfection of the spiritual life. Can any teaching be conceived more deliberately calculated and contrived to corrupt and utterly break down the merest instincts of good faith and veracity in the minds of these followers of the Apostle?

Craftily and stealthily, the solution of the difficulty is gradually propounded. Says the Blessed Abbot: "Are you certain that you can gain more spiritual profit in this region?" The reply is made by the other Abbot, the head of the wandering monks, that, grateful as they are for the services of their early teachers, who have excited in them an "egregious thirst of perfection," there can he no comparison between the benefits derivable from their old seat of tuition, and those to be gained in the society of the inimitably pure and magnificently perfect Abbot Joseph!

Definite Statements and Promises Should Not Be Made

The Worthy Abbot, in reply to these exalted tributes, then proceeds to relieve the anxiety of his friends by undermining the obligation to make definite promises; or, if they are made, the obligation to keep them!

In the first place, "Perfect Men ought to define nothing absolutely." It is, in a general sense, a sound and convenient principle, that they should efficaciously keep their promises. For that very reason the monk should define nothing abruptly, lest he should be forced to fulfil an incautious promise; or, recalled by the consideration of a more honest view, he should become a prevaricator of his promise. How is he to avoid shipwreck of conscience? He must evidently choose the greater advantage, or the least out of great evils. In this case, if they think that greater spiritual profit may be conferred upon them by their tarrying in this place than by returning to their own convent, and that they cannot fulfil their promise without the loss of great advantages, it is better for them to undergo the cost of a lie. The lie, once passed and done with, cannot be repeated, nor by itself generate other lies! On the other hand, by keeping true to their word, they go back to a lukewarm state of spiritual life, which will be to them a daily and interminable loss.

The "End Justifies the Means"

Oh, it is quite venial -- nay, it is laudable -- to change an incautious definition, if you are led thereby to a "healthier part." You must not think it a "prevarication of your constancy," but an "emendation of your rashness, when you correct a vicious promise." The Abbot then proceeds to justify the convenient system of morals by reference to Scriptural examples.

If the holy apostle Peter had kept his word, "Thou shalt never wash my feet;" if he had not withdrawn this, he would have been condemned to eternal death! We see this again from the parable of the two sons bidden to go into the vineyard. What each of them said was of no profit; both broke their word, but one did so in a laudable manner. On the other hand, the bloody Herod kept his word and oath, and so became the slayer of the Lord; and, by the vain fear of perjury, he incurred damnation and eternal punishment.

The end must ever be considered, and by that your course must be directed.

The Intention of the Doer Determines the Value of the Deed

But some scruple is felt when the mandate of the Gospel is recalled: "Let your speech be Yea, Yea, Nay, Nay; what is more abundant than these is from the evil." How can the transgressor of so great a precept be justified? How can a bad beginning turn out well in the end?

The subtle Abbot replies that all depends on the purpose of the doer. The effect of the action is not to be considered. Some have been condemned for actions out of which good has sprung; and, on the contrary, some have attained to the highest justice through blameworthy acts. Your view of the necessary and holy end sustains the necessity of the blameworthy beginning. In short, good beginnings have not profited bad authors, nor have bad deeds been nocuous to good authors.

How useful the deed of Judas, which brought about salvation, and yet "good for him if he had not been born"! How guilty the treachery of patriarch Jacob; yet he obtained thereby the perpetual heritage of blessing: he was not merely excusable, but laudable! These principles are insisted upon with the greatest emphasis and iteration.

'They are what the world has commonly called Jesuitical, perhaps unfairly so, since they are found in the works of an elder order, the teachers of all the rest."

There can be no doubt that they have been applied in literary work. The Apostolic sentence is cited, "Thoughts accusing one another, or defending one another in the day in which God shall judge the hidden things of men" (Romans ii.).

Charity and Piety Excuse Every Fraud, and Denote the Robust and Perfect Christian

And this is explained to mean, as before, that it is the purpose or destination of mind which either rewards or condemns the man. The sentence, "Piety, which has the promise of the life which now is and of that to come" (1 Timothy 4), is elucidated by the observation, that whatever is done for the charity of God and the love of piety, though it seems to begin with harsh and adverse principles, is not only worthy of no blame; but of the highest praise: Our Abbot has thoroughly imbibed the mind of the Blessed Apostle -- that is to say, he is of one and the same mind with the created Ideal of his class. And we arrive at the climax of this reasoning -- to wit, that:

"Our inner man, fed on milk from the tender beginnings of first principles, having advanced through divers ages to the more robust, and thence to the age and whiteness of the senses, and arriving at the perfect man and measure of the age of the fulness of Christ, has laid down boyish things: has that inner man, do you believe now, fallen into the variety of falsehood; has he not rather attained the fulness of perfection?" (Compare Ephesians 4:13f [what's the 'f'?])

Lies May Be Used Like Hellebore

Hellebore -- Various plants of the genus Helleborus, native to Eurasia, most species of which are poisonous. Also plants of the genus Veratrum, especially V. viride of North America, having large leaves and greenish flowers and yielding a toxic alkaloid used medicinally.

But may not our conscience give occasion to "the weak" to lie? And do not we read in the Prophet, "Thou shalt destroy all them that speak lies," and "The mouth that lies destroys the soul"? So questions the other Abbot. The reply is, that the truth of the Scripture is not to be changed because of scandal to "the weak;" that occasions cannot be wanting to those destined to perish, or who wish to perish. The question is really evaded; and the Abbot enthusiastically resumes his praises of saintly mendacity.

The saints, he says, have used lies, even as hellebore is used in diseases of the body. Rahab, harlot and liar, has earned eternal blessing. If she had not lied, she would never have been inserted in the authors of the Lord's Nativity and the Catalogue of the Patriarchs. Delilah, on the other hand, by exploring the truth and telling it, earned perpetual perdition.

But the objection is again raised: This might be done under the Law, but dare we do it under the Gospel? Does not the Apostle say, "Lie not one to another"?

And the reply is that not even under the old covenant was there a Licence of Lying, and yet many venially usurped it. How much more under the new dispensation may this licence hold!

The Apostle teaches: "Let no one seek his own, but the good of another," and "Charity seeks not her own, but others' good;" and of himself," I seek not what is useful to me, but to many, that they may be saved." (Compare 1 Corinthians 13, Philippians 2.)

With extreme pertinacity the Apostle is made to teach the necessity of telling the truth, if we desire to be useful to ourselves; the necessity of falsehood, if we should condescend to the use of others, and "with the weak become weak, that we may profit the weak."

Paul Is All Things to All Men: A Simulator and Dissimulator; A Hypocrite in the Interests of Others' Salvation

Then the Abbot, with untiring iteration, points out that the Apostles were of his opinion about the frequent noxiouasness of truth. Certainly the teaching Abbots have made Paul say anything that suits their purpose. For example:

"I became to the Jews as a Jew, that I might make gain as a Jew; to those who were under the law as if I were under the law, though I was not under the law, that I might gain those who were under the law; to those who were without law as if I were without law, though I was not without the law of God, but in the law of Christ, that I might gain those who were without law; I became weak to the weak, that I might gain the weak: I became all things to all men, that I might save all" (1 Corinthians 9:20-23).

He Is For and Against Circumcision, and Other Jewish Rites

Then we are shown how the flexible Apostle, consistently with this profession, habitually "changes his definitions," and deliberately shifts his policy to the need of the occasion. For example, "Lo! I, Paul, say to you that, if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing" (Galatians 5:2).

And yet in the case of Timothy he is made to assume, as it were, "an image of the Jewish superstition," by circumcising him (Acts 16).

His relations to James and the other elders over the same question are another example of the same pious shiftiness.

The Apostle is made to say: "I, through the law, am dead to the law, that I may live to God" (Galatians 2:19); and yet they cause him to be purified according to the law, and to offer vows in the temple after the Mosaic rite (Acts 18).

He Plays a Part to the Athenians

The Athenians were "without the law of God;" and here the all-accommodating Apostle is made to preach a sermon, in which he refers to the altar inscribed to an unknown God. He is made to talk about their religion as if he were "without law," and then to insinuate the faith of Christ. He is made to suppress all his knowledge of the divine law, and to quote a verse of a Gentile poet rather than a sentence of Moses or of Christ.

He Approves and Disapproves Marriage

He is made to indulge those who were unable to practise continence (1 Corinthians 7:1-6), and to feed some on milk, not on solid food, saying that he was among them in weakness and fear and much trembling (1 Corinthians 2-3). He is made to approve those who eat and those who abstain (Romans 14). He who weds a maiden does well, and he who does not does better! (1 Corinthians 7).

He is made to treat the justice of the law in which he had lived as dung that he might gain Christ, and yet is made to comply with legal observance with an insincere heart!

Again he is made to say, "If I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a prevaricator" (Galatians 2); and yet where, consulting his own mind and intention, he finds that truth is noxious, he acts the profitable lie!

Every pains is taken by the Abbot to show how irrational are the obstinate scruples in some minds about the obligations of the given word. The Doctor of the Gentiles is made to teach the monks, and through them to teach us, the propriety of dissimulation as well as of simulation. He is made to speak of the greatness of his revelations under the person of another: "I know a man in Christ (whether in the body or out of the body I know not, God knows) caught up to the third heaven; and I know a man of this kind that he was caught into Paradise, and heard ineffable words, which it is not lawful for a man to speak" (2 Corinthians 12).

He Promises and Breaks His Promises to the Corinthians

There remain some other Pauline feats in these arts of deceit, dodgery, and prevarication, which our Abbots have delighted to write in their Apostle.

"Paul, the Vessel of Election, writing to the Corinthians, promises his return by an absolute definition, saying, I will come to you when I shall have passed through Macedonia. For I will pass through Macedonia; but I will remain with you, or even winter, that ye may bring me on my way wherever I go. For I am unwilling to see you only in transit, for I hope to remain some time with you" (1 Corinthians 16:3-7).

He is made to recall this intention in 2 Corinthians 1:15, and to confess that he had not kept his word, and to defend himself against the charge that he was guilty of levity, or acting upon the Yea-Nay principle. He is made to imprecate, and call God as witness to his soul, that it was to spare them he had not come to Corinth. He is compared to the angels who changed their minds on the visit to Lot! (Genesis 19).

My readers may be wearied and disgusted with these things; yet they are most necessary to be understood, if the truth about this extraordinary series of alleged Letters is to be understood, which contain so many Apostolic precedents for the Apostolic life of the monasteries, loosely arranged and tacked together under the form of Epistles, and connected with a personal narrative or biographical romance.

Paul Is Here Set Up to Illustrate the Policy of the Priesthood: "All Things to All Men"

To conclude on this head. If the student picks out from the Epistles and arranges together all the significant alleged autobiographical statements of Paul, he can but derive from them the impression that, if there really was such a person, he was the most inconsistent and incomprehensible man that ever wrote. If he adds to this study the legends in the Acts, the bewilderment will increase, and the problem must be abandoned as utterly defying solution.

But if he studies the earlier and later sources indicated by the monastic faction itself, where the gradual rise of the whole legend is hinted, he will be of opinion that the incomprehensibility of the Ideal Person arises from the fact that his creators had themselves fixed upon the design to be "all things to all men," always under the condition that there should be subservience to their rule. Their one endeavour is to fix the names of Christ and of the Apostles in the minds of men, by means of all arts of expansion and variation, designed coincidences or designed contradictions in the books. All this cajolery about Paul, splendide mendax, is a remarkable effort of wit of a certain order, and the Apostle of Contradictions and Mendacity will doubtless continue to be evoked by all the sects so long as the Christian Church remains in existence.

Chapter 7: Fabricated Testimonies to Paul

Fabricated Testimonies of Other "Illustrious" Ones to Paul

The further study of this subject will serve to show what great pains have been taken by the monastic literary faction to establish the fame, and to protect the Epistles, of this great imaginary Doctor of the Gentiles. One cannot but admire the success with which they appear to have studied human nature, and to have created a multitude of illusions, into which the learned world has so readily fallen.

I proceed to show how they ascribe to others of the mock "Illustrious List" a number of mock "testimonies" to Paul and his Epistles, always begging the reader to bear in mind that what we have to do with is a literary Round Table -- in other words, with a collaboration of literary men, all working in one library and upon one scheme, laid down for them originally, as it seems highly probable, by one master-spirit in fiction.

Paul is made by them to allude to an Oral as well as a Literary Teaching -- 2 Thessalonians 2:15; and this illusion -- Word or Epistle [punc?] -- no doubt haunts the minds of many persons: it is the dogma of the Catholic Church; but the truth is that the whole Christian system is solely the work of literary men. He is made to require obedience to his epistolary commands (2 Corinthians 2:9, 7:15), while Peter is made to refer to the obscurity of Paul's Epistles, and to warn against their abuse (2 Peter 3:15).

"James" Is Made to Criticise Him

James, who stands second on the Illustrious List, is made to allude in his Epistle to the teaching of justification by faith, and partly to correct it. The attentive reader of the New Testament will be aware how, under the old opinion, these hints and short allusions have contributed to deepen the impression of the great influence of Paul. It is the strength of the artists' position among the credulous, and those, from any cause, incapable of study and criticism. But it is the weakness of the position to the true critic, because the fall of the idol Paul involves with it the fall of the whole Apostolic theory.

"Barnabas" and "Luke," His Companions

You cannot think of Barnabas of Cyprus without thinking of Paul: if Paul goes, Barnabas also vanishes; and vice versa!

Luke, the medic of Antioch, hangs on Paul, as the "companion, of all his peregrinations," and to whom Paul is made to allude, along with his Gospel, in sentences expressly framed for that purpose: "The Brother whose praise in the Gospel is through all the Churches;" "Luke, the most dear physician, salutes you;" "Luke is with me alone." It is most important to note, because it has never been pointed out before, that those sentences have been planned in Latin, to be reproduced in Latin in the Epistles.

Again, as we have seen, Paul is made to say in his Epistles, "According to my Gospel;" and this is done expressly to sanction Luke's volume, and his Gospel as having been learned from the Apostle Paul, and also from the rest of the Apostles. And Luke is made to echo this statement in his preface. It is added that he wrote the Gospel from hearsay -- an audacious statement for all those who are aware, from its mere structure, that it consists, in its basis, of a number of little Gospels or Lections designed to illustrate the feasts of the Christian year.

"Hermas"

The tenth name on the List of the Illustrious is Hermas, and to him Paul is made to allude in the Epistle to the Romans.

"Linus"

Johnson included "Linus" here in his original Table of Contents, but the body text here doesn't mention Linus, so the following paragraphs mentioning Linus are copied from elsewhere in the book.

The Eusebian then tells us that the lion means Nero he knows more than Paul is made to say in 2 Timothy 4. This chapter is remarkable for the designed coincidences with other parts of the system of fiction. There is introduced the name of Linus, the object being, as before, to fix in the reader's mind the idea of the Roman Apostolical Succession.[xvi] Compare the chapter in the Church History (consisting of three and a half lines) with 2 Timothy 4:21. In some of the manuscripts of the Church History there is this addition, ascribed to the pen of Paul: "Salutes thee, saying, Eubulus and Pudens and Linus and Claudia."

After this review, I may add that perhaps the innocentlooking, unoffending fourth chapter of 2 Timothy, with its string of names of the alleged friends of Paul, offers one of the best clues to the understanding of the whole question. Here is Paul, the Roman martyr, writing in an affecting (or affected) manner of his approaching decease, and giving a list of the names of his friends to his beloved Timothy Demas, and Crescens, and Titus, and Luke, and Mark, and Tychicus, and Corpus; also of his enemy, Alexander the coppersmith, whom he execrates; again, of his friends, Prisca, and Aquila, and Onesiphorus, and Erastus, and Trophimus, and Eubulus, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, together with an uncounted number of "brethren."

Seneca and the Forged Epistles Between Him and Paul

The eleventh name is that of Seneca. And there is just as good reason to set him down among the friends of Paul as there is in the case of any of those just named. The words of the compiler of the List of the "Illustrious" are quite definite:

"Lucius Annaeus Seneca of Corduba, disciple of Sotion, and uncle of Lucian, the poet, was of most continent life. I would not place him in the Catalogue; of Saints, if I were not provoked thereto by the Epistles which are read by a very large number of persons, of Paul to Seneca, or of Seneca to Paul. In these, being teacher of Nero, and most powerful of that time, he says that he wishes to be in the like place among his sect that Paul holds among the Christians. Two years before Peter and Paul were crowned with martyrdom he was put to death by Nero."

In all the older editions of Seneca a pair of empty little Epistles, duly forged for the purpose of establishing this connection, have come down to us. No one now believes in them; but how suggestive is the fact! It should of itself have led to the discovery of a multitude of similar forgeries in the old Latin writings. In this case there was probably some desire, not only to support the fable of Paul's connection with Nero, but to cast lustre upon his name by association with the beautiful writings of the stoic sage.

"Clement of Rome"

The fifteenth name on the List is that of Clement, of whom Paul is made to say, on the usual system of Sentences: "With Clement and the rest of my fellow labourers, whose names are written in the book of life." And Clement, in turn, is duly made to write to the Corinthians, those troublesome folk, and bid them take up the Epistles of Paul 1 [ending "1"?]

"Ignatius of Antioch"

The sixteenth name among the mock "Illustrious" is that of Ignatius, who appears to be made to write some vague allusion to Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians. But the Ignatian Greek is most vile, and the Ignatian Epistles were really composed in Latin.

"Polycarp"

Polycarp is the next or seventeenth on the List. He is made to write an Epistle to the Philippians, and to allude to Paul's Epistle to the same folk. He is also made to adduce 1 Corinthians 6:2 with the reference, "as Paul teaches."

But the Post-Apostolic Men Do Not Know Their Alleged Apostolic Masters, Which Is Absurd!

It is, however, part of the mistaken view of the subject, arising from the acceptance of the false chronology, to suppose that the alleged "Apostolic Fathers" quote from and build upon the Apostles. The discovery of this it was which led me first to see the enormous fictions that had been at work in the Christian literature, for it is absurd to suppose that Paul, after making a vast reputation as a literary man in the first century, was afterwards almost lost in oblivion in the second century. And the like applies to the deeds and sufferings of Christ himself, and to the whole fable of the origins. After all, these mythologists have made some great blunders in their system.

The alleged "Apostolic Fathers" are made to repeat some of the same Lections or little Epistles that we find placed under Paul's name, with variations. Thus Clement repeats the episode on charity (1 Corinthians 13), and several other things which remind of the same Epistle, and of some others, the details of which will be found in the handbooks, and which I have not space to adduce fully here. Nor is it necessary.

It is very probable that Clement and the First Epistle to the Corinthians may have been composed by one scribe from brief phrases and hints supplied by the direction. The evidence is dead against the ordinary theory of copying and imitation.

They Do Not Know the Epistle to the Romans

Take the richest theological Epistle ascribed to Paul: that to the Romans. Positively these so-called post-Apostolic men do not know it. They have merely some faint echoes of its contents; which is a very different thing. And it is the merest sophistry to confound them, or to talk of "Reminiscences," where there is no proof of anything of the kind. I must distinctly warn my readers against this fallacy of the handbooks and i