Paul vs. Jesus

[Guest guest]

" Everything that is known of Jesus belongs to the world of

imagination. " - Bruno Bauer, " Christus und die Caesaren " , 1841

 

" Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part,

the religious and theological warfare of the present day " - William

Wrede, " Paul " , 1904

 

 

Dear Sahaja Yogis, Seekers, Friends,

 

BY STRANGE COINCEDENCE of fate, in these days I've come in touch

with the history of protestant theology, and I have viewed it from a

perspective of a sahaja yogi. And perhaps the discussion about the

Organisation SY repressing and denouncing the Divine Message of Shri

Mataji made me thoughtful. The likeness with repressions inside

Christianity is striking. Some intuitions and discoveries here.

 

IT WAS about last week, I had a shady recollection, of memory, that

I had read from somewhere, about anti-Pauline sentiments among

Christian theologians. I just didn't remember where. Were they

German theologians? I remember someone was asking quite blatantly:

Jesus or Paul. Surely there was a time, in history, when Christians

had faced critically the question about Paul? Why modern Christians

are so fanatically Pauline, why they so much love him?

 

YESTERDAY EVENING I went almost mad. I did search. Among

the " zillions " on fundamentalist-Christian websites, I found some

hints. Someone mentioned with a leer, - " the pioneering work of the

Tübingen critics " , " liberal theology " , " Historical

Criticism " , " higher criticism " , " textual criticism " , " 19th century " –

these taboo things…

 

Then, I found out that A Jewish scholar; Hyam Maccoby has written

the book: " The Myth-Maker, Paul and the Invention of Christianity " ,

New York: Harper Collins, 1987. Now, this is beginning to get more

interesting.. Just I don't understand why he is saying that Paul is

a Gnostic? But:

 

" Maccoby is flying in the face of generations of scholarship which

has rejected and repressed Baur and his radical colleagues. Maccoby

views their rejections of Baur as a retreat into Christian

apologetics. It is no accident that Christian scholars have rejected

conclusions so theologically repugnant to them. "

 

What is so repressed and rejected? I try to trace the origin of this

line of thought, but it sure gets difficult! I have to change the

language into German. I have to travel back in Time, following the

vibes….

 

I realize that this has something to do with the allied victory of

WW II. It must be. I find names like Ferdinand Wilhelm BAUR (1792-

1860), William WREDE (1859-1906) and Paul WERNLE (1872-1939) -

Professor Wernle states, " Jesus knew nothing of that which to St.

Paul is everything. That Jesus regarded Himself as an object of

worship must be doubted; that He ascribed any meritorious atonement

to His death is altogether improbable. Paul is not a disciple of

Jesus. He is a new phenomenon. Paul is much further removed from

Jesus in his teaching than he would seem to be when regarded only

chronologically. "

 

I SEE a vision, - that shallow biblical fundamentalism must be of

Anglo-American origin. It became popular after the victory in WW II,

and the finer, German critical views got unpopular. Perhaps people

were so wearied out by the war, they lacked energy to think

critically? In my minds eye I see Dutch 19th-century theologians,

taking the Bible in their hands, highly suspicious, they deconstruct

the Bible, weight every word, very ounce, every Biblical character

and then say: well, maybe there's something good in it.

 

IT WAS the Amsterdam professor of theology Abraham Dirk Loman (1823-

1897), who wrote about himself: " The author is a radical like we

seldom meet among theologians and hardly ever among English

theologians. " The Dutch Radical Criticism of the Pauline Epistles

was born. It's getting vaguely anti-British! And worse still, it was

Adolf Hitler himself who said that Christianity must get rid of

Paul, who has falsified Christ: " Just as Saul became St. Paul,

Mardochai has become Karl Marx " . [Hitler's Table Talk, p.

314] " Christ was an Aryan and St Paul used his doctrine to mobilize

the criminal underworld and this organize a proto-Bolshevism....

Christianity is an invention of sick brains....The war will be over

one day. I shall then consider that my life's final task will be to

solve the religious problem. " [p. 142-4] Hitler said about the

protestants: " You can do anything you want with them. They will

submit . . . they are insignificant little people, submissive as

dogs . . " But of course many priests dared to resist the Nazis, like

Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer… - Not all. Some cooperated with

the Nazis. There was the Lutheran theologian, professor Adolf von

Harnack. 1851-1930. I think he is something like the pet-hate of

Anglo-American believers. Why?

 

" Therefore Protestants are not only free, but bound, to criticize

it; for a Protestant, dogma cannot be said to exist. " – Adolf von

Harnack

 

II'S BEEN SAID that Harnack made way easy for the anti-Semitists; -

he was in correspondence with Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and knew

Alfred Rosenberg. It seems to have happened that in that time, the

anti-Catholicism of nineteenth century German liberalism became the

anti-Jewish Christianity of twentieth century Nazis. The Anglican

Dean Inge, of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, did not hesitate to say

in 1945: " If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may

lay the miseries which Germany has brought on the world, I am more

and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country, is

not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin Luther. "

So it's getting a mighty politicized issue, this Paul vs. Jesus

controversy… No wonder that the mainstream Christian believers keep

silent, and don't dare to dwell into the heart of these matters. It

seems " apostle " Paul got on the side of western allied powers; on

the winning side!

 

IT WAS getting late, and my brain was pondering the question why the

Pauline heresy sticks so deep in Christianity.. and it was then I

found the underground jewel. The root of vibration. There was one

man who had written clearly about the question, and he is William

WREDE. He published a book; " PAULUS " (Paul) in Tübingen, 1904. It

was translated in English, in London 1907. There's someone TRYING to

review this book:

 

" His Paulus is rather a work of art than a popular book, though it

belongs to a popular series. It does not concern itself with detail,

but is a polished treatment of the essential life and work of the

apostle, comparing that life with the life of Jesus. In that it does

not furnish a purely historical decision it reflects Wrede's

subjective standpoint. The author regards Paul as the second founder

of Christianity, the builder of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, who

changed, by his doctrine of the incarnation, death, and resurrection

of Christ, the religion of Jesus. Not that he charges Paul with a

fault here, but rather regrets that it was Paul who did what had to

be done. As a check upon the unwholesome and panegyrical exposition

of the life of Paul, Wrede's work was valuable; but Wrede does not

present the entire Paul to his readers, it is a profile picture

which he paints " . - (Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin

College. G. A. JÜLICHEA.)

 

AND there's another book, published in Tübingen 1907, by Arnold O.

Meyer: Wer hat das Christentum begründet, Jesu oder Paulus?

Translated in English by J.R. Wilkinson, London 1909 by the

name " Jesus or Paul? " . But I can't find further information on this…

 

SUCH WONDERFUL theological geniuses. Forgotten gems. I collected

some classic anti-Pauline quotes. They; - the few enlightened souls

KNEW what the majority of believers did not! I was so surprised, and

felt joy. I mention Kahlil Gibrans wonderful text here, Emerson, I

don't know at what time anti-Pauline thoughts emerged, - Hermann

Samuel Reimarus, Enlightenment thinker and professor of Oriental

languages at the Hamburg Gymnasium charged the gospel writers

with " conscious fraud and innumerable contradictions " already in

1778. Martin Luther had the beautiful reformative pure idea of five

solus: Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Soli

Deo Gloria. – I think it must come to that Lutheran root.

 

Just wished to share this joy with fellow sahaja yogis.

 

Jay Shri Mataji!

An An. SY from Helsinki…

 

 

---

Famous quotes about Paul:

 

" The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul in

regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust....The moral

majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his

people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-

religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's

Christology nothing whatever....The name 'disciple of Jesus' has

little applicability to Paul....Jesus or Paul: this alternative

characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological

warfare of the present day " - William Wrede, Paul, 1904

 

" In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense:

Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a

disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul draws

attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the

death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his reformation,

failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity had

become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the

religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of

Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the

opposite of the original proclamation of Christ " - Soren

Kierkegaard, in The Journals

 

" True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel

words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of Paul

have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal

defects of Christian theology. " - Ernest Renan

 

" Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what

complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was regarded....What

is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the

fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of

Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the

Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of Jesus,

and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that

the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain

the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of

Jesus, but displaces it. " - Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952

Nobel Peace Prize, in " The Quest for the Historical Jesus "

 

" It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the

Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline

conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent

on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes --

irrelevant for Paul. " - Rudolf Bultman, in his " Significance of the

Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul "

 

" If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul

was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age. " - Walter Bauer

 

" There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the characteristic

utterances of Jesus....There has really never been a more monstrous

imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the

soul of Jesus....It is now easy to understand how the Christianity

of Jesus....was suppressed by the police and the Church, while

Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at

that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official

faith. " - George Bernard Shaw, in " Androcles and the Lion "

 

" The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to

Paul " - Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith

 

------------

 

Saba of Antioch

On Saul of Tarsus

 

 

THIS DAY I heard Saul of Tarsus preaching the Christ unto the Jews

of this city.

He calls himself Paul now, the apostle to the Gentiles.

 

I knew him in my youth, and in those days he persecuted the friends

of the Nazarene. Well do I remember his satisfaction when his

fellows stoned the radiant youth called Stephen.

This Paul is indeed a strange man. His souls is not the soul of a

free man.

 

At times he seems like an animal in the forest, hunted and wounded,

seeking a cave wherein he would hide his pain from the world.

 

He speaks not of Jesus, nor does he repeat His words. He preaches

the Messiah whom the prophets of old had foretold.

 

And though he himself is a learned Jew he addresses his fellow Jews

in Greek; and his Greek is halting, and he ill chooses his words.

But he is a man of hidden powers and his presence is affirmed by

those who gather around him. And at times he assures them of what he

himself is not assured.

 

We who knew Jesus and heard his discourses say that He taught man

how to break the chains of his bondage that he might be free from

his yesterdays.

 

But Paul is forging chains for the man of tomorrow. He would strike

with his own hammer upon the anvil in the name of one whom he does

not know.

The Nazarene would have us live the hour in passion and ecstasy.

 

The man of Tarsus would have us be mindful of laws recorded in the

ancient books.

Jesus gave His breath to the breathless dead. And in my lone nights

I believe and I understand.

 

When He sat at the board, He told stories that gave happiness to the

feasters, and spiced with His joy the meat and the wine.

 

But Paul would prescribe our loaf and our cup.

Suffer me not to turn my eyes the other way.

 

- Kahlil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man(1928)

http://terebess.hu/english/gibran1.html

---------

 

PS. This text is chaotic, but I put here all I could find about this

theme. Something like a conclusive list.

[Guest guest]

Dear An An,

 

Thank you so much for all your hard research. It might interest you

to know that Shri Mataji often referred disparagingly to the person whom She

referred to as " Mr. Paul " as not a true follower of Christ, but as of a

different spirit.

 

i always used to wonder too, how Paul and Jesus were related. With all your

information, this difference is more easily seen now.

 

Thank you so much.

 

Violet

 

, " chakrapranava "

<chakrapranava> wrote:

> " Everything that is known of Jesus belongs to the world of

> imagination. " - Bruno Bauer, " Christus und die Caesaren " , 1841

>

> " Jesus or Paul: this alternative characterizes, at least in part,

> the religious and theological warfare of the present day " -

William

> Wrede, " Paul " , 1904

>

>

> Dear Sahaja Yogis, Seekers, Friends,

>

> BY STRANGE COINCEDENCE of fate, in these days I've come in touch

> with the history of protestant theology, and I have viewed it from

a

> perspective of a sahaja yogi. And perhaps the discussion about the

> Organisation SY repressing and denouncing the Divine Message of

Shri

> Mataji made me thoughtful. The likeness with repressions inside

> Christianity is striking. Some intuitions and discoveries here.

>

> IT WAS about last week, I had a shady recollection, of memory,

that

> I had read from somewhere, about anti-Pauline sentiments among

> Christian theologians. I just didn't remember where. Were they

> German theologians? I remember someone was asking quite blatantly:

> Jesus or Paul. Surely there was a time, in history, when

Christians

> had faced critically the question about Paul? Why modern

Christians

> are so fanatically Pauline, why they so much love him?

>

> YESTERDAY EVENING I went almost mad. I did search. Among

> the " zillions " on fundamentalist-Christian websites, I found some

> hints. Someone mentioned with a leer, - " the pioneering work of

the

> Tübingen critics " , " liberal theology " , " Historical

> Criticism " , " higher criticism " , " textual criticism " , " 19th

century " –

> these taboo things…

>

> Then, I found out that A Jewish scholar; Hyam Maccoby has written

> the book: " The Myth-Maker, Paul and the Invention of

Christianity " ,

> New York: Harper Collins, 1987. Now, this is beginning to get more

> interesting.. Just I don't understand why he is saying that Paul

is

> a Gnostic? But:

>

> " Maccoby is flying in the face of generations of scholarship which

> has rejected and repressed Baur and his radical colleagues.

Maccoby

> views their rejections of Baur as a retreat into Christian

> apologetics. It is no accident that Christian scholars have

rejected

> conclusions so theologically repugnant to them. "

>

> What is so repressed and rejected? I try to trace the origin of

this

> line of thought, but it sure gets difficult! I have to change the

> language into German. I have to travel back in Time, following the

> vibes….

>

> I realize that this has something to do with the allied victory of

> WW II. It must be. I find names like Ferdinand Wilhelm BAUR (1792-

> 1860), William WREDE (1859-1906) and Paul WERNLE (1872-1939) -

> Professor Wernle states, " Jesus knew nothing of that which to St.

> Paul is everything. That Jesus regarded Himself as an object of

> worship must be doubted; that He ascribed any meritorious

atonement

> to His death is altogether improbable. Paul is not a disciple of

> Jesus. He is a new phenomenon. Paul is much further removed from

> Jesus in his teaching than he would seem to be when regarded only

> chronologically. "

>

> I SEE a vision, - that shallow biblical fundamentalism must be of

> Anglo-American origin. It became popular after the victory in WW

II,

> and the finer, German critical views got unpopular. Perhaps people

> were so wearied out by the war, they lacked energy to think

> critically? In my minds eye I see Dutch 19th-century theologians,

> taking the Bible in their hands, highly suspicious, they

deconstruct

> the Bible, weight every word, very ounce, every Biblical character

> and then say: well, maybe there's something good in it.

>

> IT WAS the Amsterdam professor of theology Abraham Dirk Loman

(1823-

> 1897), who wrote about himself: " The author is a radical like we

> seldom meet among theologians and hardly ever among English

> theologians. " The Dutch Radical Criticism of the Pauline Epistles

> was born. It's getting vaguely anti-British! And worse still, it

was

> Adolf Hitler himself who said that Christianity must get rid of

> Paul, who has falsified Christ: " Just as Saul became St. Paul,

> Mardochai has become Karl Marx " . [Hitler's Table Talk, p.

> 314] " Christ was an Aryan and St Paul used his doctrine to

mobilize

> the criminal underworld and this organize a proto-Bolshevism....

> Christianity is an invention of sick brains....The war will be

over

> one day. I shall then consider that my life's final task will be

to

> solve the religious problem. " [p. 142-4] Hitler said about the

> protestants: " You can do anything you want with them. They will

> submit . . . they are insignificant little people, submissive as

> dogs . . " But of course many priests dared to resist the Nazis,

like

> Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer… - Not all. Some cooperated with

> the Nazis. There was the Lutheran theologian, professor Adolf von

> Harnack. 1851-1930. I think he is something like the pet-hate of

> Anglo-American believers. Why?

>

> " Therefore Protestants are not only free, but bound, to criticize

> it; for a Protestant, dogma cannot be said to exist. " – Adolf von

> Harnack

>

> II'S BEEN SAID that Harnack made way easy for the anti-Semitists; -

 

> he was in correspondence with Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and

knew

> Alfred Rosenberg. It seems to have happened that in that time, the

> anti-Catholicism of nineteenth century German liberalism became

the

> anti-Jewish Christianity of twentieth century Nazis. The Anglican

> Dean Inge, of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, did not hesitate to

say

> in 1945: " If we wish to find a scapegoat on whose shoulders we may

> lay the miseries which Germany has brought on the world, I am more

> and more convinced that the worst evil genius of that country, is

> not Hitler or Bismarck or Frederick the Great, but Martin

Luther. "

> So it's getting a mighty politicized issue, this Paul vs. Jesus

> controversy… No wonder that the mainstream Christian believers

keep

> silent, and don't dare to dwell into the heart of these matters.

It

> seems " apostle " Paul got on the side of western allied powers; on

> the winning side!

>

> IT WAS getting late, and my brain was pondering the question why

the

> Pauline heresy sticks so deep in Christianity.. and it was then I

> found the underground jewel. The root of vibration. There was one

> man who had written clearly about the question, and he is William

> WREDE. He published a book; " PAULUS " (Paul) in Tübingen, 1904. It

> was translated in English, in London 1907. There's someone TRYING

to

> review this book:

>

> " His Paulus is rather a work of art than a popular book, though it

> belongs to a popular series. It does not concern itself with

detail,

> but is a polished treatment of the essential life and work of the

> apostle, comparing that life with the life of Jesus. In that it

does

> not furnish a purely historical decision it reflects Wrede's

> subjective standpoint. The author regards Paul as the second

founder

> of Christianity, the builder of ecclesiastical orthodoxy, who

> changed, by his doctrine of the incarnation, death, and

resurrection

> of Christ, the religion of Jesus. Not that he charges Paul with a

> fault here, but rather regrets that it was Paul who did what had

to

> be done. As a check upon the unwholesome and panegyrical

exposition

> of the life of Paul, Wrede's work was valuable; but Wrede does not

> present the entire Paul to his readers, it is a profile picture

> which he paints " . - (Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin

> College. G. A. JÜLICHEA.)

>

> AND there's another book, published in Tübingen 1907, by Arnold O.

> Meyer: Wer hat das Christentum begründet, Jesu oder Paulus?

> Translated in English by J.R. Wilkinson, London 1909 by the

> name " Jesus or Paul? " . But I can't find further information on

this…

>

> SUCH WONDERFUL theological geniuses. Forgotten gems. I collected

> some classic anti-Pauline quotes. They; - the few enlightened

souls

> KNEW what the majority of believers did not! I was so surprised,

and

> felt joy. I mention Kahlil Gibrans wonderful text here, Emerson, I

> don't know at what time anti-Pauline thoughts emerged, - Hermann

> Samuel Reimarus, Enlightenment thinker and professor of Oriental

> languages at the Hamburg Gymnasium charged the gospel writers

> with " conscious fraud and innumerable contradictions " already in

> 1778. Martin Luther had the beautiful reformative pure idea of

five

> solus: Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gratia, Sola Fide,

Soli

> Deo Gloria. – I think it must come to that Lutheran root.

>

> Just wished to share this joy with fellow sahaja yogis.

>

> Jay Shri Mataji!

> An An. SY from Helsinki…

>

>

> ---

> Famous quotes about Paul:

>

> " The oblivious contradictions in the three accounts given by Paul

in

> regard to his conversion are enough to arouse distrust....The

moral

> majesty of Jesus, his purity and piety, his ministry among his

> people, his manner as a prophet, the whole concrete ethical-

> religious content of his earthly life, signifies for Paul's

> Christology nothing whatever....The name 'disciple of Jesus' has

> little applicability to Paul....Jesus or Paul: this alternative

> characterizes, at least in part, the religious and theological

> warfare of the present day " - William Wrede, Paul, 1904

>

> " In the teachings of Christ, religion is completely present tense:

> Jesus is the prototype and our task is to imitate him, become a

> disciple. But then through Paul came a basic alteration. Paul

draws

> attention away from imitating Christ and fixes attention on the

> death of Christ The Atoner. What Martin Luther. in his

reformation,

> failed to realize is that even before Catholicism, Christianity

had

> become degenerate at the hands of Paul. Paul made Christianity the

> religion of Paul, not of Christ Paul threw the Christianity of

> Christ away, completely turning it upside down. making it just the

> opposite of the original proclamation of Christ " - Soren

> Kierkegaard, in The Journals

>

> " True Christianity, which will last forever, comes from the gospel

> words of Christ not from the epistles of Paul. The writings of

Paul

> have been a danger and a hidden rock. the causes of the principal

> defects of Christian theology. " - Ernest Renan

>

> " Paul....did not desire to know Christ....Paul shows us with what

> complete indifference the earthly life of Jesus was

regarded....What

> is the significance for our faith and for our religious life, the

> fact that the Gospel of Paul is different from the Gospel of

> Jesus?....The attitude which Paul himself takes up towards the

> Gospel of Jesus is that he does not repeat it in the words of

Jesus,

> and does not appeal to its authority....The fateful thing is that

> the Greek, the Catholic, and the Protestant theologies all contain

> the Gospel of Paul in a form which does not continue the Gospel of

> Jesus, but displaces it. " - Albert Schweitzer, winner of the 1952

> Nobel Peace Prize, in " The Quest for the Historical Jesus "

>

> " It is most obvious that Paul does not appeal to the words of the

> Lord in support of his....views. when the essentially Pauline

> conceptions are considered, it is clear that Paul is not dependent

> on Jesus. Jesus' teaching is -- to all intents and purposes --

> irrelevant for Paul. " - Rudolf Bultman, in his " Significance of

the

> Historical Jesus for the Theology of Paul "

>

> " If one may be allowed to speak rather pointedly the Apostle Paul

> was the only Arch-Heretic known to the apostolic age. " - Walter

Bauer

>

> " There is not one word of Pauline Christianity in the

characteristic

> utterances of Jesus....There has really never been a more

monstrous

> imposition perpetrated than the imposition of Paul's soul upon the

> soul of Jesus....It is now easy to understand how the Christianity

> of Jesus....was suppressed by the police and the Church, while

> Paulinism overran the whole western civilized world, which was at

> that time the Roman Empire, and was adopted by it as its official

> faith. " - George Bernard Shaw, in " Androcles and the Lion "

>

> " The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is completely opposed to

> Paul " - Martin Buber, Two Types of Faith

>

> ------------

>

> Saba of Antioch

> On Saul of Tarsus

>

>

> THIS DAY I heard Saul of Tarsus preaching the Christ unto the Jews

> of this city.

> He calls himself Paul now, the apostle to the Gentiles.

>

> I knew him in my youth, and in those days he persecuted the

friends

> of the Nazarene. Well do I remember his satisfaction when his

> fellows stoned the radiant youth called Stephen.

> This Paul is indeed a strange man. His souls is not the soul of a

> free man.

>

> At times he seems like an animal in the forest, hunted and

wounded,

> seeking a cave wherein he would hide his pain from the world.

>

> He speaks not of Jesus, nor does he repeat His words. He preaches

> the Messiah whom the prophets of old had foretold.

>

> And though he himself is a learned Jew he addresses his fellow

Jews

> in Greek; and his Greek is halting, and he ill chooses his words.

> But he is a man of hidden powers and his presence is affirmed by

> those who gather around him. And at times he assures them of what

he

> himself is not assured.

>

> We who knew Jesus and heard his discourses say that He taught man

> how to break the chains of his bondage that he might be free from

> his yesterdays.

>

> But Paul is forging chains for the man of tomorrow. He would

strike

> with his own hammer upon the anvil in the name of one whom he does

> not know.

> The Nazarene would have us live the hour in passion and ecstasy.

>

> The man of Tarsus would have us be mindful of laws recorded in the

> ancient books.

> Jesus gave His breath to the breathless dead. And in my lone

nights

> I believe and I understand.

>

> When He sat at the board, He told stories that gave happiness to

the

> feasters, and spiced with His joy the meat and the wine.

>

> But Paul would prescribe our loaf and our cup.

> Suffer me not to turn my eyes the other way.

>

> - Kahlil Gibran, Jesus the Son of Man(1928)

> http://terebess.hu/english/gibran1.html

> ---------

>

> PS. This text is chaotic, but I put here all I could find about

this

> theme. Something like a conclusive list.