From Jewish Prophet To Gentile God

"But we speak wisdom among the perfect ones, yet not wisdom of this age, neither of the rulers of this age who are doomed to nothingness. But we speak wisdom in mystery having been hidden, which God foreordained before the ages for our glory. Not one of the rulers of this age has known, for if they knew, they would not have crucified the lord of glory.”

(1st Corinthians, 2: 6-8.)

This familiar passage conveys something of the esoteric character of Paul’s statement, but reference must be made to the original Greek text to reveal its true significance. The key is found in the words, “rulers of this age.”

As directly translated this expression would seem to refer to the Roman and Jewish authorities responsible for the arraignment and crucifixion of Jesus. However in their original Greek form, αρχοντων του αιωνος the words have a very different meaning. They denote the daimonic powers believed to govern the present world order, and their employment in this particular context shows that Paul was thinking in terms of current Hellenistic-Roman astralism.

This was a very esoteric system based upon the ancient traditional belief that the stars and particularly the planets, ruled the destinies of humankind. The planets were identified with, or were regarded as being inhabited by, elemental spirits, which Paul refers to elsewhere as the, στοιχεια του κοσμου elemental spirits of the universe.

When this astral context of Paul’s idiosyncratic thought process is realised, his statement about the crucifixion of Jesus assumes a strange significance. According to him this judicial execution of a Galilean Jewish messianic agitator was in fact not the work of the contemporary Roman provincial authorities in Judaea, but of these daimonic rulers of the lower planetary world, which is also the abode of human beings.

Moreover, the personage crucified by these archontes is designated as, the “Lord of glory,” (κυριον της δοξης) and is clearly perceived to be some sort of supernatural being. Paul also represents this strange transaction as due to the, “mysterious and hidden wisdom of God” (θεου σοφιαν εν μυστηριωι την αποκεκρυμμενην) “foreordained by God before the ages for our glory.” (προωρισεν ό θεος προ των αιωνων εις δοξαν ήμων)

This preconceived divine plan was evidently intended to involve the deception of these archontes regarding the real significance of their crucifixion of this so called “Lord of glory.”

In this incredible statement, Paul is obviously making reference to the actual execution of Jesus of Nazareth for sedition against Roman rule in Judaea. However, he has in effect totally removed the event from its historical situation and assigned to it a transcendental cosmic significance.

This marked the initial stage in the metamorphosis of Jesus of Nazareth, the charismatic Galilean Jewish prophet, exorcist and preacher into the “lord Jesus Christ,” the cosmic saviour, and eventual deity in the new tripartite Christian pantheon.

Jesus has been identified here with a supposedly supernatural personage.
His crucifixion was not really the culmination of a mundane Roman judicial process, but the work of these daimonic archontes. These same entities had allegedly been cunningly deceived by God into perpetrating this action, obviously to their own detriment.

Such a speculative theological scenario is just about as far removed from the tribunal and jurisdiction of the Praefectus of Judaea as it could possibly ever be.

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"If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I should have reason to bear with you, O Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I refuse to be a judge of these things." And he drove them from the tribunal.
(Acts 18. 14-16)

Interesting. Could Paul's conversion been something else? Where did this apparent interest in the occult originate?

I think you make good points and one has to consider how it is that Paul shows almost no interest in Jesus himself, even though Jesus death was somewhere between 1 to 6 years previous.

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Not all those who wander are lost

The term “occult” is not really appropriate here because of its modern nefarious connotations. The word simply means “hidden” and in the religious systems of the ancient world any secret or esoteric knowledge, regarding supernatural concepts, did not necessarily imply anything detrimental or malevolent.

The traditional view assumes that Jesus of Nazareth founded Christianity and that Paul was the most prominent proselytising envoy of the new faith. This however was not the case. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew who did not in fact start any new religion, but merely sought to play an accepted role within the contemporary Judaism of his day.

It was in fact Paul who created Christianity as a new religious cult separate from Judaism and this was achieved by conflating existing Judaic and Hellenistic concepts into a powerful and all embracing system sufficient to enable the subsequent development of a completely new world religion, being by its nature, both acceptable and intelligible to Graeco-Roman society.

In order to attempt any real understanding of this matter it is necessary to examine some specific examples from Paul’s authentic writings in order to elucidate the actual terminology he employs in the ongoing development of his beliefs.

He appears to have been a complex, somewhat disturbed and ambivalent character. Although apparently, born, brought up and schooled in Judaism, he seems to have eventually become dissatisfied with his ancestral faith, considering it to be inadequate, particularly with reference to the perceived problems of sin and individual salvation. Paul was not primarily an original thinker, but did possess a profound religious imagination.

It is therefore probably more appropriate to regard him as a mythopoeic visionary rather than as a theologian. Moreover, his personality often seems to have been torn apart by violent inner psychological conflicts. He was a charismatic preacher and indefatigable, peripatetic teacher, always restless and seldom tranquil. Periodically he was also the victim of, what might nowadays be described as, manic-depressive mood swings, often experiencing a terrible sense of discord and frustration between his actions as they actually were and how he would ideally have liked them to be.

Paul employed powerful methods to convey the significance of what he believed. His dramatic personal conversion experience had transformed him, and to his mind, the world was now a totally different place. It was evident to him that the crucifixion of Jesus had of itself, completely altered the significance of the existing world and its destiny.

“We yet proclaim Christ having been crucified, to Jews on one hand an offence (σκανδαλον), to [other] nations (εθνεσιν) on the other, folly.”

(1st Corinthians, 1: 23.)

“Christ redeemed us out of the curse (καταρας) of the Law by becoming on behalf of us a curse, because it has been written, accursed [is] everyone hanging on a tree.”

(Galatians, 3: 13.)

To Jews, it was certainly outrageous to suggest that the Messiah had been a condemned criminal, conquered nobody and was then executed on a Roman cross. To Greeks, it was absurd to credit someone with the salvation of his followers when he had been unable even to save himself. Neither would any practising Jew have then [or now] regarded the sacred Mosaic Law as a curse, but rather as a cherished and divine blessing.

Paul regarded the existing world as being subjugated to the forces of sin and evil. The problem was so immense that the solution could only be visualized as something previously quite unthinkable. Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus (this was Paul’s own personal designation), he proclaimed, had rescued the world from its enslavement and had died to save all mankind. Paul however, never fully explains exactly how such propitiation had been brought about.

The contemporary Hellenistic world was permeated with the cults of saviour gods and goddesses, although none were ever identified with real individuals who had lived and died in the recent past. This was probably of no importance for Paul, who perceived Jesus in mystical terms rather than as a strictly historical personage (2nd Corinthians 5: 16 q.v.). Nevertheless, he seems to have been familiar with the interpretation of Jesus as a servant (Philippians, 2: 7, Romans 15: 8) but was personally far more interested in the idea of Jesus’ death as bestowing eternal salvation.

The terminology employed by Paul when describing his perception of Jesus is complex, eclectic and somewhat ambiguous. He regarded him as being more than a mere human being, but not precisely equal with or identical to God. It was for later generations of Christian ecclesiastics and theologians to elucidate and develop the doctrinal prototypes which Paul had originally outlined. In essence the basic theme is that of the descent to earth of the divine saviour. This, of necessity, implies other narrative elements as follows.

There are two distinct cosmic areas. Heaven (ουρανος) is the spiritual realm and earth (γη), the material domain. Heaven is the upper abode of light (φως) and earth, the lower region of darkness (σκοτος). Rescue (σωτηρια) is needed from the dark prison of the earthly region and no entity subsisting there can secure release. Accordingly no earthly act of liberation is of any effect. No transfer from one area of the lower region to another via any physical, moral or ethical exertion is possible. What imprisons is the human condition, which is one of total bondage to the powers of evil.

From this stems the idea of original sin, a reinterpretation, devised by Paul, from the Hebrew story regarding the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The primary narrative and its Judaic exegesis did not of course have any of these radical connotations.

This type of dualistic concept is identical with the religious system known as Gnosticism now believed to have existed, in a nascent state, before the inception of Christianity, although of course its development assumed many later diverse and quasi-Christian forms.

As has been noted, the contemporary Hellenistic world teemed with religious cults and esoteric philosophies that promised salvation of various kinds. Paul would no doubt have rejected them as the service of false gods, but he could not have escaped their influence since they reflected the fears and aspirations of society and provided the current religious vocabulary.

The various esoteric philosophies that can be designated as gnostic, taught that each individual human being was compounded of an immortal soul (ψυχη) imprisoned within a physical body (σωμα) This unfortunate condition was due to an original descent of the soul from its abode of light and bliss and its involvement with matter. Thus, by becoming incarnated in this world, the soul had also become subject to the daimonic powers that inhabited the planets and controlled the world. From this state of perdition it could be rescued by acquiring a proper knowledge (γνωσις) of its nature and freed from the involvement with matter, it would ascend through the celestial spheres to its original home.

(See 2nd Corinthians, 12: 2-4, for a comparative concept)

Such ideas were foreign to contemporary Judaism, but it is significant that Paul when seeking to interpret the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion does so in terms that presuppose that mankind is enslaved by demonic powers, from whom they are redeemed by the death and resurrection of a semi-divine saviour figure. Paul writes in Galatians, 4: 3-5

"So with us, while we were infants, we were enslaved to the elemental spirits of the universe (στοιχεια του κοσμου) but when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons."

Στοιχεια were, in this context, daimonic powers identified with astral phenomena. So it is evident that here Paul was envisaging the human situation as one of subjugation to these entities until redemption was won by the personified son of God. Paul obviously regarded the crucifixion of Jesus as attaining such redemption, but the way this was achieved is not made apparent. Sometimes the concepts of the Jewish sacrificial cult are invoked, implying that the death of Jesus was some kind of oblation, but who demanded it and to whom it was offered is not made clear.

By employing ideas and terminology current in the Graeco-Roman world, Paul was able to construct a soteriology intelligible to his gentile converts, but based on recent historical events in Palestine and a system of beliefs essentially Jewish in origin. Whereas in Judaism the rite of circumcision was the mode of initiation into the spiritual community, it was baptism that constituted the means of entry into Paul’s new groups of believers. This ritual was itself imbued with mystical significance as outlined in Romans 6: 3-5 (q.v.) Thus, according to Paul, through baptism, the Christian neophyte was ritually assimilated to Christ in his death in order to be one with him in his resurrection.

Such was the “gospel” that Paul believed he had been divinely entrusted for preaching to the Gentiles. It effectively replaced the presentation of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel with that of Jesus the semi-divine saviour of mankind. It presupposed that all people were in need of the same kind of salvation. This belief system was fundamentally different from the teachings of the Jerusalem based Jewish followers of Jesus and was obnoxious to them. Not only did it equate Jew with Gentile, thereby depriving the former of their unique and cherished sense of spiritual superiority (Judaism was the only contemporary monotheistic religion) but it transformed the Messiah of Israel into the “saviour” of the hated heathen Roman oppressors who had executed him for sedition against their domineering imperial rule in Judaea.

When the leaders of the Jerusalem Jesus community understood the nature and implications of Paul’s teachings, they set about opposing them. They were in an extremely strong position to do this, for they could repudiate Paul as a latecomer to the Messianic faith, whereas he could not challenge their authority as the original disciples and eyewitnesses of Jesus of Nazareth. Accordingly they sent out emissaries among Paul’s converts, asserting that theirs was the only authentic version of that solely Jewish based faith.

The catastrophic war against Rome (66-71) and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem ended the theocratic Jewish state and its ancient ritual cult. The overwhelming historical significance of these momentous events must not be ignored or under estimated.

The progress of Paul's new religious system could now continue unchallenged, for the remnants of the original Jewish followers of Jesus had been destroyed or forced into ignominious exile by the triumphant Roman legions of Vespasian and Titus.

Except for a small surviving body of ascetic, messianic, Jewish/Christian sectaries later known as Ebionites, (ηβαιος = poor) who were persecuted as heretics by the later politically empowered Christian Church, the future direction of Christianity was, for good or ill, irrevocably fixed, throughout the ensuing centuries.

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"If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I should have reason to bear with you, O Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I refuse to be a judge of these things." And he drove them from the tribunal.
(Acts 18. 14-16)

If archon referred only to the spiritual world, and had no political connotation, then you really believe that demonic or angelic beings administered the day to day business of Athens, for example? It was, after all, a common political title.

Lots of nice speculation, but show it from scripture. Deal with the documents

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Even the title of this thread does not acknowledge that God is a Jewish God, it is the kind of nation He created to illustrate His Way.

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Since the Torah is a finite book expressing the will of an infinite God, many lessons must be derivable from each passage from all the infinite angles.

Of course the word archon had political connotations, but by the first century CE its significance had been considerably modified. Furthermore, as I have previously stated, it is quite evident from the original literary context that Paul is not making reference here to any mundane or temporal authorities.

Αρχοντης ('rulers'), is indeed the general Greek term for those holding political office and the word itself was frequently used as the title of a specific appointment, originally at least the highest office of the state. Archontes were to be found in most city-states of central Greece, including Athens and in those states that were dependent on or influenced by Athens. However, in 146 BCE Greece came under direct Roman rule and in 27 BCE the area was incorporated into the province of Achaia, under the control of a senatorial proconsul (ανθυπατος). Archons were still appointed to oversee local civic affairs, but their authority was subordinate to the imperium of the proconsul. The cities of Dyme and Patrae being established Roman coloniae remained semi autonomous, electing their own magistrates in accordance with established Roman practice.

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"If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I should have reason to bear with you, O Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I refuse to be a judge of these things." And he drove them from the tribunal.
(Acts 18. 14-16)

It was in fact Paul who created Christianity as a new religious cult separate from Judaism and this was achieved by conflating existing Judaic and Hellenistic concepts into a powerful and all embracing system sufficient to enable the subsequent development of a completely new world religion, being by its nature, both acceptable and intelligible to Graeco-Roman society.

You are stating that Paul was doing something contrary to what God and Yeshua had in mind.

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Since the Torah is a finite book expressing the will of an infinite God, many lessons must be derivable from each passage from all the infinite angles.

It is quite evident from an impartial and critical examination of the surviving sources that Paul, was indeed the founder of “Christianity” as a new religious cult separate from Judaism and that the Pauline conception of Jesus as Іησους χριστος (this specific term was in fact devised by Paul himself) bears no resemblance whatsoever to the ascetic, Galilean, peasant teacher and holy man as portrayed in the Synoptic Gospels.

This personage is often depicted as subtly conveying his teaching through parables and continually admonishing the local Jewish people to repent of their sins anticipate the (soon to be established) kingdom of heaven on earth and to worship none save God alone.

Paul’s preaching was in complete contrast to all this and consisted of a completely mythologized, conception of Jesus, not the teachings of the historical, ascetic, Jewish holy man who had lived in Galilee and died, condemned for sedition, on a Roman cross in Judaea.


Paul’s writings clearly indicate the speculative, ambiguity of his religious imagination and his importance on the subsequent development of Christianity cannot be understated. It was through his personal, allegedly divinely revealed, soteriology that the new cult eventually separated itself from Judaism and, the human being, Jesus of Nazareth was metamorphosed from a Galilean Jewish teacher into a cosmic saviour-god. Paul must be regarded as the sole originator of this completely new religious system.

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"If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious crime, I should have reason to bear with you, O Jews; but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I refuse to be a judge of these things." And he drove them from the tribunal.
(Acts 18. 14-16)

I believe St Paul is making a dual reference to both the demonic powers of the air and the actual human authorities under their thumb. They didn't realize that Christ would conquer death by His death and that their plans would merely work out to the benefit of humanity.

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Amen!!! That reminds me of Daniel and him talking about the Prince of Persia.

Thanks,
TT

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The Bible states that those who fornicate will not inherit the Kingdom of God be it between homosexuals or men and woman who are not married. (Gal 5:19-21).
Again, I urge anyone who supports homosexual marriage to repent of their sin.