The Legacy of F.C. Baur

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

Jesus the Christ said that:

 

" Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to

abolish, but to fulfill " . (Matthew 5:17)

 

In 'Jesus and Judaism' we concluded with the following:

 

(p.153) t is evident that 'the earliest [Christian] community in no sense

felt themselves to be a new religion, distinct from Judaism'...[T]hey saw

themselves simply as fulfilled Judaism, the beginning of eschatological

Israel...Indeed we may put the point more strongly:...the earliest Christians

were not simply Jews, but in fact continued to be quite orthodox Jews.

...[T]his is the group with whom Christianity proper all began. Only their

belief in Jesus as Messiah and risen...mark them out as different from the

majority of their fellow Jews. None of the other great Christian distinctives

that come to expression in and through Paul are present...

If we now shift our glance from the beginning of Christianity forward 150

years or so into the second century and beyond, it at once becomes evident that

the situation has significantly altered: Jewish Christianity, far from being the

only form of Christianity, is now beginning to be classified as unorthodox and

heretical. [8]

Dunn's analysis was in fact already recognized and accepted by liberal Christian

scholars in Germany in the 1800s, most notably F.C. Baur. As Maccoby notes,

" Nineteenth-century New Testament scholarship, on the whole, recognized these

facts and gave them due weight. It has been left to twentieth-century

scholarship, concerned for the devastating effect of this recognition on the

conventional Christian belief, to obfuscate the matter. " [9]

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity) Chapter 8, pg.

153.

Notes:

[8] Dunn, 'Unity and Diversity', 239.

[9] Maccoby, 'The Mythmaker', 127.

Here now, is The Legacy of F.C. Baur.

Enjoy,

violet

The Legacy of F.C. Baur

(p.154) It was in 1831 that F.C. Baur put forth the revolutionary hypothesis we

have already examined that the supposedly united early Christian community was

actually more like two clashing political parties, and that the two patron

saints of the Christian church--Peter and Paul--were more akin to feuding

cousins than brothers in the faith.

Baur was a remarkable man in many ways. A world-class scholar of undisputed

integrity, and adept in many fields, he was legendary for his workaholism. In

his office every morning by 4 A.M., by the end of his life, Baur had an average

literary output equivalent to a five-hundred-page book every year for forty

years!

What Baur shall be most remembered for, despite some glaring flaws in his

work, is that he was the first New Testament scholar to recognize " the forest

for the trees " --the first to see the larger picture of the first-century

historical reality of Christian origins. Baur's proposal--first formally put

forward in the article " The Christ Party in the Corinthian Church " --was the

opening volley of a revolution in our understandings of Christian origins. But

we can recognize today that Baur's theories, while basically accurate, were also

biased to a large extent by a deep-rooted anti-Semitism that pervades his

thought. Though Baur recognized the thoroughgoing Jewishness of James and the

apostles, he, too, believed it to be a consequence of " re-Judaization. " Though

conservative Christian scholars roundly attacked him for his " liberal " views, in

hindsight Baur was still a traditional Pauline Christian who believed that Jesus

came to found a new religion superior to Judaism.

One of Baur's most vocal critics in recent times was the esteemed New

Testament scholar Johannes Munck. In his acclaimed work, 'Paul and the Salvation

of Mankind', Munck succinctly summarizes Baur's theory and points out the

inherent weakness in it:

Baur's view of the development of early Christianity stresses the party contrast

between the primitive Church and Paul. He makes the apostles and the whole

Church stand on Jewish ground throughout, apart from their belief in the

crucified Jesus as the coming Messiah. Everything about Jesus that was the

expression of a new religion was either forgotten or completely disregarded in

the apostles' memory. When Paul rediscovers the universalism and freedom that

Jesus represented, it puts him out of line with the primitive Church, which

refuses to approve his message. [10]

(p.155) Munck then states what he believes to be the basic problem inherent in

Baur's theory:

t is quite incredible that Jesus' disciples, who were those nearest to him

during the whole of his ministry, learnt and retained nothing of his life and

teaching, but continued to have a Jewish point of view--apart, of course, from

their belief that the crucified Jesus was identical with the coming Messiah.

This quote could just as well have come from Maccoby's own hand. When bedfellows

as odd as Munck and Maccoby agree on a point as salient as this one, we know

we're on to something. Munck simply could not bring himself to believe that the

disciples would have retained their traditional Jewish beliefs after being

" enlightened " by Jesus, and this is why he rejected Baur's thesis. For his part,

Baur was ahead of his time in insisting on the Jewishness of the Jerusalem

church and the disharmony of the early church as a whole. What sets him apart

from most of today's third-quest scholars is that he assigned the disciples'

adherence to the Law to backsliding. But this is where Baur made his only real

mistake. As all the evidence we have examined has shown us, the apostles'

ongoing adherence to Jewish faith and practice was most emphatically 'not' a

case of " re-Judaization. " As Maccoby starkly makes clear, the disciples had

simply 'never abandoned' their Jewish beliefs and practices. And the reason--a

reason that slaps us modern-day Christians right across the face--is that

'Jesus' had not abandoned those beliefs and practices.

Another component of Baur's theory that has remained influential is the idea

that it was in the give-and-take (what scholars technically call " dialectic, "

following the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel) of the friction and struggles between

the Jewish Christian and Gentile Christian churches that a new

religion--Christianity as we know it today--emerged. Evangelical commentator

Timothy George provides one of the best summaries I have come across of Baur's

thinking on the dialectical origins of Christianity:

Baur proposed that the history of early Christianity could be read in terms of

the polar opposition between two rival factions. One, led by Paul and Apollos,

emphasized the Christian mission to the Gentiles; the other, gathered around

Peter and James, stressed the priority of the Jerusalem church and the

continuing validity of the Jewish law for Christian believers...According to

this view, the Pauline party continued to become more and more radical in its

break with Judaism until it was ultimately absorbed into Gnosticism. The Petrine

party, on the other hand, became more and more narrow, gradually evolving into

such Jewish-Christian sectarian groups as the Ebionites. Eventually a synthesis

between the Pauline and Petrine extremes was achieved in the emergence of " early

Catholicism. " [11]

Hegels' influence on Baur is obvious. Hegel understood all of history to

proceed " dialectically " : in the struggle between a " thesis " and an " antithesis, "

a new " synthesis " occurred. In the case of the early church, it was in the

struggle between Jerusalem-based Jewish Christianity and Pauline-based Gentile

Christianity that the synthesis of Catholic Christianity emerged. It is possible

to see this theory played out in the pages of the New Testament. The Jewish

Christian " thesis " is represented in the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and

Revelation; the Pauline corpus represents the " antithesis " ; and the conciliatory

Acts represents the earliest synthesis of the two poles.

Baur used as primary evidence of this struggle the arguments Paul makes

against his opponents in Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and

Philippians--opponents who would clearly seem to be strict Jewish Christians who

want to " Judaize " Paul's Gentile converts. In Philippians, Paul writes bitterly

of them: " Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who

mutilate the flesh! For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the

Spirit of God and boast in Jesus Christ and have no confidence in the flesh "

(3:1-2). This is one of Paul's classic pieces of vitriol against those who claim

that circumcision is necessary for salvation. In Galatians, Paul is furious with

the believers in Galatia for being deceived by these " Judaizers " : " You foolish

Galatians! Who has bewitched you?...Did you receive the Spirit by doing the

works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having

started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? " (3:1-3). In 2

Corinthians, Paul similarly rails against the Corinthian Christians for their

gullibility:

I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will

be led astray...For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we

proclaimed...or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it

readily enough. I think that I am not in the least inferior to these

super-apostles. (11:3-5)

Just who these " super apostles " are who have been " deceiving " the believers

in Corinth is another of the greatly debated questions in New Testament

scholarship. Paul goes on to mysteriously describe them as " false apostles,

deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder!

Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his

ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness " (1 Cor.

11:13-15). It is these words that caused Baur to come to the conclusion that

these " super apostles " were none other than the original apostles. One can see

why Baur would think so. Ever since Baur first put forth his disturbing theory,

all kinds of exegetical [biblical interpretations] and hermeneutical gymnastics

[interpretational maneuverings] have been performed to conclude otherwise, but

Baur's main thesis remains sound.

In the 1800s, Baur's theories were vociferously attacked as heresy. It is no

exaggeration to say that he was one of the first victims of the modern academic

inquisition. The two leading disciples of the " old master of Tubingen, " Eduard

Zeller and Albert Schwegler (both brilliant scholars in their own right), were

driven out of teaching because of their views. Unfortunately, truth often comes

at a perilous price. As Jesus taught, prophets are without honor in their own

time.

Baur can also be justifiably criticized for portraying too simplistically a

bipolar rivalry between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, an issue that scholars

today realize was much more complex than a simple two-party battle. As we have

seen, there were many competing factions within the early church, falling along

a continuum from conservative " Judaizers " to liberal Hellenistic Christians.

James Dunn has summarized how some early attempts were made in the late

nineteenth century to amend Baur's theory:

Early on [baur's theory] was qualified by the recognition that his portrayal of

early Christianity in terms of a confrontation between two monolithic blocks was

too much of an oversimplification. The Jewish Christians could not be lumped

together as a single group opposed to Paul. " Strict or extreme Judaizers " were

to be distinguished from " moderate Jewish Christians, " and while the former

could be linked to Jerusalem, Peter was to be distinguished from them, with the

question whether James should be reckoned a Judaizer a subject for some debate.

[12]

(p.158) This, then, became a generally accepted alternative to Baur's theory.

Dunn goes on to explain that over a century later scholars were still attempting

to avoid the implications of the original Tubingen theory by positing other

possibilities for the identity of Paul's opponents:

Baur's basic claim, that the opposition to Paul during his mission should be

designated as " Judaizers, " Jewish Christians who insisted that Paul's Gentile

converts must be circumcised and become Jews, was widely accepted, and indeed

became axiomatic in most of the discussions of the next hundred years...

This broad consensus has received two major challenges in the twentieth

century...W. Lutgert saw Paul's chief opponents at Corinth as spiritual

enthusiasts, an early type of gnostic libertines...and saw them also alongside

the [Judaizers] as a second front in Galatians. And W. Schmithals pushed the

case further by arguing that in Galatians there are no judaizers in view at all,

only Jewish Gnostic Christians, with similar claims for Corinthians and

Philippians...

J. Munck developed the reaction against Baur and the Tubingen school on

another front by arguing that there was no judaizing party in Jerusalem and by

rejecting the " pan-Judaizer " hypothesis...Paul's letters were addressed to

different situations with different opponents....The judaizing opponents in

Galatians are 'Gentile' Christians keen to adopt the practices of the Law...the

compulsion to " Judaize " did not come from Jewish Christianity, which was

concerned only for its mission within Israel, but was a 'Gentile' Christian

" heresy. " (italics mine)

'Gentile' Christians 'keen' to adopt the practices of the Law? Gentile 'men'

keen to be circumcised? The illogic of all this is rather obvious. While one

could assert that the fervor with which many people even today embrace the

religion they convert to could show that Gentiles might have been willing and

even eager to fulfill all the requirements of the Law, including circumcision,

there is evidence to reject this hypothesis. As we have noted, there were many

" God-fearers, " Gentiles who adopted the Jewish faith, but they were only

expected to adhere to the minimal Noahide laws (the regulations stipulated in

the Apostolic Decree). In fact, it was the unworkability of requiring adherence

to the Law for Gentiles that fueled Paul's mission. (p.159) Although Munck's

theories gained much attention from scholars eager to dismiss the Tubingen

theory, in hindsight it is quite obvious that Munck's is a last-gasp effort to

avoid the increasingly obvious--but for many, unpalatable--facts that Baur first

saw almost two centuries ago.

Many others have attempted in the past 175 years to offer viable alternatives

to Baur's description of an early church fraught with discord, but the

alternatives all falter on the balance beam of common sense. Simply put, we know

that Paul faced opposition. That opposition was, in fact, the impetus for the

writing of almost all of his letters. Now, if we look at the situation

objectively--just based on a commonsense approach to these basic facts--who else

could these opponents possibly have been other than 'Jewish' Christians, and not

just any Jewish Christians, but the apostolic leadership itself? At the time

that Paul wrote, 'less than twenty years' after the crucifixion, there simply

would not have been enough time for " heresies, " such as the Gnosticism that

Munck and others proposed, to have permeated the widespread Christian

communities. Munck's hypothesis, that Paul's opponents were 'Gentile' Christians

who were enthusiastic for the Law, strains credibility.

Even if, for argument's sake, there 'were' such a thing as Gnostic or Gentile

" Judaizers " early on, such novel groups would certainly not have been able to

exert any great influence on the communities established by Paul and his

missionary companions. And certainly such fledgling heretical groups would not

yet have the logistical capability or the necessary authority (which can only

come with time or with one's close relationship to the founders) to be sending

missionaries to far-flung parts of the empire to convert the established Gentile

churches to Jewish practice (especially if, as the theory goes, they themselves

were not Jewish). And, last but certainly not least, Paul would surely not refer

to them as 'apostles', as he does in 2 Corinthians.

Simply put, Who else but the apostles themselves would have had the motive,

the ability, and, most importantly, the 'authority' (already in the years circa

45-50) to send emissaries to so many far-flung Gentile communities--including

Antioch, Corinth, Philippi, and Galatia--to preach adherence to the Law? That it

could have been anyone other than the apostles defies all logic. No one other

than Jesus' own apostles would possess the authority to influence these new

Christians on such an important matter, especially when it was a matter in such

serious disagreement with the highest authority in the Gentile churches--Paul

himself. (p.160) No one other than the apostles would dare take on Paul. And not

only challenge Paul, but win!

F.C. Baur was indeed on the right track. He saw the " matching shorelines, "

but couldn't quite make all the pieces fit since he lacked the proper supporting

mechanism, just as Alfred Wegener in his theory of continental drift lacked the

supporting evidence of seafloor spreading, which wasn't discovered until later.

The most damaging criticism of Baur, in fact, is not that he oversimplified the

division in the early church or that he erroneously believed that the Jewish

Christians were " backsliders, " but rather that his theory as a whole is

anti-Semitic insofar as it understands Christianity to be the superior

replacement for an inferior Judaism. What has often been little understood is

the extent to which he perpetuated an ancient tradition of Christian

supersessionism (i.e., that Christianity supersedes Judaism). How this latent

anti-Semitism detracts from Baur's theory is revealed quite well in an article

in the 'Dictionary of Paul and His Letters', which highlights the all-too-common

belief (perpetuated by Baur) that Christianity is a universal religion that God

intended to be a superior replacement for the outmoded particularistic religion

of Judaism:

Paul is seen too much as an isolated apostle who alone truly understands the

universalism and freedom that Jesus represented. Apparently in the memory of the

other leading apostles this has either been forgotten, misunderstood or

compromised. A misleading contrast informed Baur's and many of his followers'

theology--they posited an absolute opposition between particularism [Judaism]

and universalism [Christianity];...from this perspective Paul was seen as a lone

contender for the universalism of the gospel in contrast to the primitive

church, whose leaders were in varying degrees tribalistic or particularistic in

their ongoing commitment to Judaism. [13]

Both in spite of and because of this serious shortcoming of the Tubingen

theory, a revival of Baur's theories is occurring under the influence of the

third-quest school of thought, especially in the writings of extremely liberal

Christian scholars, such as Michael Goulder and Gerd Ludemann, and controversial

Jewish scholars, such as Robert Eisenman and Hyam Maccoby. (p.161) Even

mainstream Christian scholars, such as James Dunn and Bruce Chilton, and

conservative scholars, such as Craig A. Evans, are opening the door to a new

acceptance of Baur's theories, but in a revised form that more accurately

reflects the complexity and diversity of early Christianity. Dunn, however,

warns against falling into the trap that caught Baur: There was no polar

opposition between two monolithic camps. In line with his emphasis on the wide

but continuous spectrum of belief in the early church, Dunn says, " I go along

with the older F.C. Baur theses at least to the extent that emerging catholicism

was a catholic synthesis of several strands and tendencies (and factions) within

earliest Christianity. " [14]

This leaves us still facing the vital question, Amid all of the variety of

early Christian belief, what was the original " orthodoxy " ? What was the nature

of the originating source from which all of these " strands and tendencies " first

divided, and then later re-coalesced to produce a " catholic synthesis " ?

The Brother of Jesus (And the Lost Teachings of Christianity)

Chapter 8, pg. 154-161

Jeffrey J. Butz

Inner Traditions - Rochester, Vermont

ISBN 1-59477-043-3

Notes:

[10] This and the following excerpt are from Johannes Munck, 'Paul and the

Salvation of Mankind' (London: SCM Press, 1959), 70-71.

[11] Timothy George, 'Galatians'. The New American Commentary Vol.30.

(Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 51-52.

[12] This and the following excerpt are from R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden,

eds., 'A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation', s.v. " Judaizers, " by James D.G.

Dunn (Philadelphia: Trinity Press, 1990), 370-71.

[13] Hawthorne and Martin, eds., 'Dictionary of Paul and His Letters', s.v.

" Judaizers, " by W.S. Campbell, 513.

[14] Dunn, 'Unity and Diversity', xxix.