



Produced by David Widger






CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL

By Boulanger

Translated From The French Of Boulanger

"Paul, thou art beside thyself, much learning doth make thee mad."

Acts, chap. 26, ver. 24.

1823

INTRODUCTION.

EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO M. L. N.

Sir, In our last conversation you appeared to me, very much smitten with
St. Paul and his works; you recommended me to reperuse his writings;
assuring me that I should there find arguments well calculated to shake
incredulity and confirm a Christian in his faith.

Although the actions of this celebrated Apostle, related in the Acts,
and his doctrine contained in his Epistles, were already perfectly known
to me, yet to conform myself to your desires, and give you proofs of
my docility, I have again read those works, and I can assure you that
I have done it with the greatest attention. You will judge of that
yourself, by the reflections I send you; they will at least prove to you
that I have read with attention. A superficial glance is only likely to
deceive us or leave us in error. The passions and the prejudices of men
prevent them from examining with candour, and from their indolence they
are often disgusted with the researches necessary for discovering truth;
that has also been with so much care veiled from their eyes: but it is
in vain to cover it, its splendour will sooner or later shine forth;
the works of enthusiasm or imposture, will always end by betraying
themselves. As for the rest, read and judge. You will find, I think, at
least, some reasons for abating a little from that high opinion, that
prejudice gives us of the Apostle of the Gentiles, and of the religious
system of the Christians, of which St. Paul was evidently the true
architect. I am not ignorant that it is very difficult to undo at
one blow the ideas to which the mind has been so long accustomed;
but whatever may be your judgment it will not alter the sentiments of
friendship and attachment which are due to the goodness of your heart.

I am, &c, &c.




CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL




CHAPTER I. Is the Conversion of St. Paul a proof in favour of the
Christian Religion?

Many theologians would make us regard the miraculous conversion and
apostleship of St. Paul as one of the strongest proofs of the truth of
Christianity. But in viewing the thing closely it appears that this
conversion, far from proving any thing in favour of this religion,
invalidates the other proofs of it, in fact, our doctors continually
assure us that the Christian religion draws its strongest proofs from
the prophecies of the Old Testament, whilst there is not in fact a
single one of these prophecies that can be literally applied to the
Messiah of the Christians. St. Paul himself willing to make use of these
oracles of the Jewish nation to prove the mission of Christ, is obliged
to distort them, and to seek in them a mystical, allegorical, and
figurative sense. On the other side, how can these prophecies made by
Jews and addressed to Jews, serve as proofs of the doctrine of St.
Paul, who had evidently formed the design of altering, or even of
destroying, the Jewish religion, in order to raise a new system on its
ruins? Such being the state of things, what real connection, or what
relation, can there be between the religious system of the Jews, and
that of St. Paul? For this Apostle to have had the right of making use of
the Jewish prophecies, it would have been necessary that he should have
remained a Jew; his conversion to Christianity evidently deprived him of
the privilege of serving himself, by having recourse to the prophecies
belonging to a religion that he had just abandoned, and the ruin of
which he meditated. True prophecies can only be found in a divine
religion, and a religion truly divine, can neither be altered, reformed,
nor destroyed: God himself, if he is immutable, could not change it.

In fact, might not the Jews have said to St. Paul, "Apostate that you
are! you believe in our prophecies, and you come to destroy the religion
founded upon the same prophecies. If you believe in our oracles, you
are forced to believe that the religion which you have quitted is a true
religion and divinely inspired. If you say, that God has changed his
mind, you are impious in pretending that God could change, and was not
sufficiently wise, to give at once to his people a perfect worship, and
one which had no need of being reformed. On the other side, do not the
reiterated promises of the Most High, confirmed by paths to our fathers,
assure us, that his alliance with us should endure eternally? You are
then an impostor, and, according to our law, we ought to exterminate
you; seeing that Moses, our divine legislator, orders us to put to
death, whoever shall have the temerity to preach to us a new worship,
even though he should confirm his mission by prodigies. The God that you
preach is not the God of our fathers: you say that Christ is his son;
but we know that God has no son. You pretend that this son, whom we have
put to death as a false prophet, has risen from the dead, but Moses has
not spoken of the resurrection; thus your new God and your dogmas
are contrary to our law, and consequently we ought to hold them in
abhorrence." In short these same Jews might have said to St. Paul: "You
deceive yourself in saying, that you are the disciple of Jesus, your
Jesus was a Jew, during the whole of his life he was circumcised, he
conformed himself to all the legal ordinances; he often protested
that he came to accomplish, and not to abolish the law; whilst you in
contempt of the protestations of the Master, whose Apostle you say you
are, take the liberty of changing this holy law, of decrying it, of
dispensing with its most essential ordinances."

Moreover the conversion of St. Paul strangely weakens the proof that
the Christian religion draws from the miracles of Jesus Christ and his
Apostles. According to the evangelists themselves the Jews were not
at all convinced by these miracles. The transcendant prodigy of the
resurrection of Christ, the wonders since wrought by some of his
adherents did not contribute more to their conversion. St. Paul believed
nothing of them at first, he was a zealous persecutor of the first
Christians to such a degree, that, according to the Christians, nothing
short of a new miracle, performed for him alone, was able to convert
him; which proves to us that there was, at least, a time when St. Paul
did not give any credit to the wonders that the partisans of Jesus
related at Jerusalem.

He needed a particular miracle to believe in those miracles, that we
are obliged to believe in at the time in which we live, without heaven
operating any new prodigy to demonstrate to us the truth of them.




CHAPTER II. Opinions of the first Christians upon the Acts of the
Apostles, and upon the Epistles and Person of St. Paul.

It is in the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistles of St. Paul, that
we find the details of his life and the system of his doctrine; but, how
can we be certain of the authenticity of these works, whilst we see many
of the first Christians doubt and reject them as apocryphal? We find,
in fact, that from the earliest period of the church, entire sects of
Christians, who believed that many of the Epistles published under
the name of this Apostle, were not really his. The Marcionites were
confident that the gospels were filled with falshoods, and Marcion,
their head, pretended that his gospel was the only true one.

The Manicheans, who formed a very numerous sect at the commencement of
Christianity, rejected as false, all the New Testament, and produced
other writings, quite different, which they gave as authentic. The
Corinthians, as well as the Marcionites, did not admit the Acts of the
Apostles. The Encratites and the Severians did not adopt either the Acts
or the Epistles of St. Paul. St. John Chrysostom in a homily, which he
has made upon the Acts, says, that in his time (that is to say, towards
the end of the fourth century) many men were ignorant not only of the
name of the author, or of the collector of these Acts, but even did
not know this work. The Valentinians, as well as many other sects
of Christians accused our scriptures of being filled with errors,
imperfections, and contradictions, and of being insufficient without the
assistance of traditions; this is a fact that is attested to us by St.
Irenaeus. The Ebionites or Nazarenes, who, as we shall soon see, were the
first Christians, rejected all the Epistles of St. Paul, and regarded
him as an impostor and hypocrite.

It will not fail being said to us, that we ought not to rely on
the testimony of heretics; but I shall reply, that in the matter in
question, their testimony is of the same weight as that of the orthodox,
seeing that all the different sects consider themselves as orthodox,
and have treated their adversaries as heretics. How shall we unravel the
truth if we do not hear both parties? By what signs shall we know those
on whom we ought to rely? Shall we cede the cause without examining their
adversaries, to writers who utter to us falshoods without number, who
contradict each other, who are never agreed amongst themselves, and
whose discordant writings are nevertheless produced as proofs of what
they advance? In any other subject such a conduct would seem to betray a
partiality or even insincerity: but in religious matters, every thing is
fair, and there is no necessity of being so nice.

However that may be, it does not follow that because one sect has
received or rejected a work, that the work itself is either true or
false; there cannot be otherwise than, a diversity of opinions between
persons of different parties; their testimony ought to have equal
weight, until the partisans of one sect, have been convicted of being
greater cheats and liars, than those of the other. If we pay no regard
to the authority of heretics, it is because they have not had sufficient
power to enforce their opinions. It is power or weakness which makes
orthodoxians or heretics: the last are always those who have not power
enough to make their opinions current.

What course shall we then pursue to discover on which side is the truth?
An impartial man will no more expect to find it in one party than in
another, thus the testimony of the one can have no greater weight than
that of the other in the eye of an unprejudiced man.

This granted, we cannot rely on the authority of Christian traditions
which vary in all sects, and we shall be reduced to recur solely
to reason, especially when we find that the works, which are to-day
regarded as authentic, have in other times been considered as
suppositious, or apocryphal, by some very ancient sects of Christians,
and that the works and writings, then regarded as apocryphal, have since
been adopted as true.

It appears that in the ancient churches, they read at once the works
that we now regard as true, and those that now-pass for suppositious,
in such sort, that there is reason to believe they were then held to
possess equal claim to authenticity: it is, at least, very, difficult
to demonstrate the contrary in the present time. Some churches have
attributed the same authority to false or doubtful writings as to true.

The Roman Church to-day adopts as authentic and divinely inspired many
books of the Bible, absolutely rejected by the Protestants. How is it
possible to decide which is the party that deceives itself?

By what right can we then affirm to-day that the works of St. Paul,
formerly rejected by so many Christian sects, are authentic, that is
to say, truly belong to this Apostle? On the other hand, how can we
attribute to divine inspiration writings filled with inconsistencies,
contradictions, mistakes, and false reasonings, in a word, which bear
every character of delirium, of ignorance, and of fraud? I acknowledge
that those who want valid proofs, always do right to affirm the thing,
with the tone of authority; but this tone proves nothing, and always
prejudices against those who take it. Nothing is more injurious to the
interest of truth, than the arrogance of an usurped authority. These
are, however, the arms that are incessantly opposed to those who doubt
of religion. It would seem that its defenders have no other arguments
than their pretences; it is easy to feel that these arguments are every
thing, but convincing.

The Acts of the Apostles, adopted by the Ebionites or Nazarenes, relate
amongst other things, that, "Paul was originally a Pagan, that he
came to Jerusalem where he dwelt for some time; that being desirous of
marrying the daughter of the High Priest he became a proselyte, and
was circumcised; but not being able to obtain the woman he desired,
he quarrelled with the Jews, began to write against the circumcision,
against the observation of the Sabbath, and against legal ordinances."

We know that the name of Nazarenes was the first which was given to the
Christians. St. Epiphanius, from whom the preceding passage is taken,
says, "that they were thus named because of Jesus of Nazareth," of whom
they were the first disciples. The Jews called them Nazarenes from the
Hebrew word Nozerim, which signifies one separated or excommunicated;
again they designated them under the name of Mineans, that is to say,
heretics. They were also by contempt called Ebionites, which signifies
poor, mendicant, weak-minded. In fact, the Hebrew Ebion, means poor,
miserable, and we know, that the first followers of Christ, were every
thing but opulent or intelligent men.

The first faithful, were Jews converted by Jesus himself, or by the most
ancient Apostles, such as Peter, James, and John, who as well as their
master, lived in Judaism. These Apostles, disciples, and new converts,
differed from the Jews in nothing but the belief in Jesus Christ, whom
they regarded as the Messiah predicted by the prophets; otherwise
they believed themselves bound constantly to observe the Mosaic law,
persuaded that their Messiah was come to accomplish and not to destroy
this law. In consequence of this, they observed circumcision, the
abstinence from certain meats, separation from the Gentiles, in a word,
the Jewish rites and ordinances.

Thus the first Apostles, and their adherents, were only Jews, persuaded
that the Messiah was already come, and was going soon to commence his
reign, which made them hated and persecuted as schismatics or heretics
by their fellow-citizens. St. Jerome informs us, "that even down to his
time, the Jews used to anathematize the Christians, under the name of
Nazarenes, three times a day in their synagogues."

All this evidently proves, that the Nazarenes, of Ebionites, were the
first Christians, taught by the most considerable of the Apostles, and
that the first Christians were only reformed Jews; this is clearly the
only idea we can form of Christianity, such as it was taught by Jesus
Christ himself.

How then comes it that since Jesus, Christianity has been so separated
from Judaism? a slight attention will prove to us that this is owing to
St. Paul. Repulsed by the Jews, or perhaps desirous of playing a
more important part, we see him separate himself from his brethren of
Jerusalem, and undertake the conversion of the Gentiles, for whom
the Jews entertained no sentiment but horror. Encouraged by his first
successes and wishing to extend them, he dispensed the Pagans from the
painful ceremony of circumcision; he declared that the law of Moses, was
only a law of servitude, from which Jesus was come to free mankind; he
pretended that all the old law was merely the emblem and figure of the
new; he announced himself as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and leaving
Peter and the other Nazarenes to preach the gospel of circumcision,
he preached his own gospel, which he himself called the gospel of
uncircumcision: in a word, he made a divorce with the Jewish laws, to
which his apostolic brethren believed they ought to hold themselves
attached, at least, in most respects.

The conduct of Paul, must naturally have displeased his seniors in the
Apostleship, but fear appears to have deter mined them to cede, at least
for a time, to our missionary who had already made a considerable party.
Nevertheless the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of Paul, prove to
us his quarrels with his brethren, who, according to appearances, never
viewed with a friendly eye, his enterprizes and innovations. Moreover,
Eusebius and St. Epiphanius inform us, that our Apostle was regarded as
an apostate, an impostor, and an enemy by the Ebionites, that is to say,
by the first faithful. But St. Paul's party having in the end prevailed,
the Jewish law was entirely banished from Christianity, and the
Ebionites, or Nazarenes, though of more ancient date and though formed
by Christ and his first apostles were declared heretics.

It is proper to remark in this place that these Ebionites, or first
Christians, believed that Jesus was but a man, as much on the side of
his father as on that of his mother, that is to say, the son of Joseph
and Mary; but that he was a wise, just, and excellent person, thus
meriting the appellation of the son of God, because of his holy life and
good qualities whence we see that the first Christians were as well as
the first Apostles, true Socinians. But St. Paul to give, without doubt,
more lustre to his ministry, and his adherents after him, willing to
extol the holiness of their