Paul and Jesus

This kind of personal identification between consuming the transformed elements of the Eucharist and one’s hope of giving life to the mortal body is not as far removed from Paul as it might first sound. When he instructs the Corinthians about the way in which they must approach this sacred meal with awe and proper preparation, Paul observes that some of them, who have disregarded the “body of Christ,” have become “weak and ill, and some have died” (1 Corinthians 11:30). He means this quite literally. He links the physical health and well-being of their bodies to the way in which they are participating in the Lord’s Supper. The implication is that if one properly participates in this sacred meal one will be preserved “body, soul, and spirit” in sound health until the arrival of Christ in the clouds of heaven (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

When the Christians of Asia, where Paul had worked for many years, first came to the attention of the Romans in the early second century A.D., they were viewed with suspicion as an illegal cult, given to “superstition” and suspected of practicing “abominations.” The Romans suspected them of eating human flesh, drinking blood, practicing magical curses and spells, and holding nocturnal meetings involving men and women of all classes at which they would remove their clothing and engage in vile sexual acts of every description.³⁰

Pliny the Younger, appointed by the emperor Trajan as a provincial governor in Bithynia-Pontus, in northern Asia Minor, around A.D. 110, had Christians arrested and interrogated on suspicion of such crimes. The Christians, of course, maintained their innocence, and one of the things they emphasized was that when they gathered together to eat their sacred meals they consumed only “ordinary harmless food,” and that they took oaths to never lie, steal, kill, or commit adultery. In contrast, Jews were accepted in Roman culture as a legal religion with a high standard of ethics. It is not hard to imagine how an outside observer might have so characterized Paul’s “mystery religion,” when he himself had trouble keeping things in check.

By the end of the second century Paul’s triumph was complete. His views of baptism and the Lord’s Supper had been accepted as orthodox Christian teaching and his emphasis on the cosmic Christ over the human Jesus predominated. The editing of the New Testament, with the gospels, the book of Acts, and Paul’s thirteen letters following, more or less sealed the orthodox interpretation. The Christianity of James and the original apostles began to fade in influence.

Despite Paul’s efforts at propagating the validity of these spiritual experiences and practices among his followers, his message faced major difficulties. As we will see in the following chapter, both his experiences and his message were grounded in his conviction that the end of the age was near and that his followers very shortly would experience the full transformation from flesh to spirit, which had been only partially realized in their initial union with Christ. Time was not on Paul’s side, and as a result his followers increasingly had to face the hard reality of continued life in a world that remained very much as it had always been. They were truly trapped between two worlds.

SEVEN

ALREADY BUT NOT YET

Paul and his followers faced an insurmountable problem, and unwittingly their failure to overcome it resulted in incalculable human suffering and misery. They had pushed themselves hard up against the cruel reality of time. It is one thing to believe that one is living at the end of history, right on the cusp of its transformation, but quite another to continue to deal with the hard, relentless reality of ordinary day-to-day life, unchanged year after year. The passing of time is something that every apocalyptic group has had to face, in whatever period they have lived.

However, for Paul and his followers it was even worse. It was not just a matter of time, of waiting. Not only did they believe that the transformation of the world was near: they were convinced it had already begun—but it had not yet arrived! They believed they were “in Christ,” and thus already participating in God’s grand reshaping of the cosmos. At the same time, “outside” in the natural world, human life and history continued as always. They were not simply living between two worlds, waiting for one to end and the other to begin. They were living within two worlds. Plato had taught that one could leave this world and go to a higher heavenly existence. Jesus and other apocalyptic Jews expected the imminent end of this world and the arrival of the new age. Paul’s gospel said that the chosen ones were already in the kingdom of God, by being in Christ even while waiting for its arrival.