Paul: Apostle to the Nations, An Introduction

13. How Did People Develop What Paul Wrote?

289 Chapter 13 How Did People Develop What Paul Wrote? The purpose of this chapter is to survey the Pauline tradition in the generations immediately following Paul, in order to see how Paul and his thought were utilized as the church continued to develop. Six letters in the New Testament that are associated with the name of Paul are understood in this book to have been written in his name by someone else after his death. Such writings were common in antiquity and were viewed as ways both to honor the original author or founding figure (in our case Paul) and to update him for a new time and place.1 The six such Pauline letters are 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus. They are Pauline in the sense that they seek to continue Paul’s heritage, but they are not Pauline in the sense that Paul was their author, and for that reason they are sometimes called “deuteropauline” (deutero- meaning “secondary”) or “pseudopauline.” After considering those New Testament letters , we will also look briefly at other documents and movements in which Paul figures prominently: the New Testament book of Acts, the writings of Ignatius of Antioch, those of Marcion, Gnosticism, the Acts of Paul and Thecla, and the Pseudo-Clementinian literature. Richard Pervo identifies both the importance of the deuteropauline letters in the New Testament for Paul’s ongoing significance and the variety of that material : “The most important fact communicated by the existence of pseudo-Pauline letters is that the apostle continued to have authority. They would not otherwise exist. . . . Investigation of these letters will also demonstrate that a single form of 290 | Paul: Apostle to the Nations Deutero-Pauline thought, with appropriate developments within that framework, cannot be traced.”2 Therefore,we will consider how each piece of deuteropauline and other material illuminates the apostle from different perspectives. The Eschatological Paul (2 Thessalonians) The situation to which 2 Thessalonians is addressed has two foci. First, there is reference to persecution. We do not know the content of the suffering that has faced the recipients, but the author is able to boast about the recipients because of the way they have maintained the faith “during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring” (1:4). Second, a false teacher has apparently referred to oral or written statements of Paul to support the teacher’s view that the Day of the Lord has already arrived: Fig. 13.1 The apostle Paul is depicted as a miracle worker, suffering no harm as he throws a poisonous snake into the fire after being shipwrecked on Malta (Acts 28:1-6). Twelfthcentury fresco from Canterbury Cathedral. Chapter 13: How Did People Develop What Paul Wrote? | 291 “As to the coming [parousia] of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here” (2:1-2). This realized eschatology has sharply affected the daily life of some believers, who are refusing to work in light of the end (3:6-15), so the author has to be blunt: “Anyone unwilling to work should not eat” (3:10). In response to the situation of the recipients, the author of 2 Thessalonians develops in 2:1-12 a timetable that lists specific events that need to occur before the coming of the Day of the Lord.Whereas in 1 Thess 4:13-18 and 1 Cor 15:2058 , Jesus could return suddenly at any moment, that cannot happen in 2 Thessalonians , in part because the author wants to dampen the kind of “eschatological excitement” that has led to the belief that the coming of Jesus either has already in some way happened or will occur imminently. The chief solution the author proposes is a division of the present and future into periods, each of which needs to happen in order before the return of Jesus. First come “the rebellion” and the revealing of “the lawless one”(in Greek,the man of lawlessness).Ultimately,he takes God’s seat in the temple (presumably in Jerusalem) and declares himself to be God, but for the moment, he is being restrained. At the same time, “the mystery of lawlessness...