There are remarkable similarities between the Christian doctrine and the teachings of the Classical Greek philosophers, combined with the religious syncretism (combining of different beliefs and various schools of thought) of Paul's day. Nothing Jesus or any of his disciples taught resemble or seem even vaguely suggestive of them, yet they fill Paul's letters. The terminologies he uses, many doctrinal principles he espoused regarding sin, salvation, faith, death, heaven and the very nature of God, even the names he uses for those in office within the Church, are not what Jesus used, but are all lifted straight from these contemporary sources. This study focuses on the terminologies and theologies expounded by the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aratus, and Hellenistic religious syncretism that Paul interwove into the Gospel he preached, and asks why did Paul liberally quote these Greek philosophers, yet never once quoted Jesus, whom his Gospel was supposed to reveal?
Religious syncretism (combining of different beliefs and various schools of thought), a fusion of traditional Greco-Roman and Egyptian cults, became popular during the Hellenistic Period, which spans the period of Mediterranean history between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the emergence of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year. Some of the many divinities that theGreeks and Romans nominally adopted from other cultures also came to be worshipped in Mysteries; for instance, Egyptian Isis, Persian Mithras from the Mithraic Mysteries, Thracian/Phrygian Sabazius, and Phrygian Cybele.
Paul was a native of the Hellenistic city Tarsus in Cilicia in Asia Minor, which was an old seaport with a long history of Pagan worship. By Paul's time it had surpassed even Athens and Alexandria to become the major centre of Pagan philosophy, and it was from here, during Paul's youth, that the so-called Greco-Roman mystery cults were popularised. The Greek geographer Strabo writes: "The people of Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly, not only to philosophy, but also to the whole round of education in general, that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where have been schools and lectures of philosophers." Athenodorus of Tarsus became a tutor to Emperor Augustus. Athenodorus was in turn a disciple of Posidonius, arguably the greatest philosopher of the first century BCE.
Even though he claimed he was a jew, it must be remembered that Paul was born and bred in Tarsus, a city where Greek was the common language spoken and Greek culture was embraced. Though Paul was a Jew, he had embraced the ubiquitous Greek culture of the times. It is understandable therefore that Paul would have thought like a Greek and that Greek words and terms of phrase would have filled his vocabulary. We cannot criticise or question him for doing this, but it is Paul's omission of the teachings of Jesus in his version of the 'gospel', and substituting them with contemporary Greek religious concepts and theologies that should be of great concern to all Christians.
If we can throw off the traditional picture of Paul and look at the evidence with an open mind, it is clear to see that Paul's letters the use of Greek terminologies, which is understandable given his background and that of his audience. But read Phaedo by Plato, and you can see similarities between Plato's choice of words and the writings of Paul in the New Testament. There are so many concepts common to both writers that one could not dismiss their existence as coincidence. But of greater concern is that the distinct Gnostic and Pagan influences in Paul's writings in no way resemble the teaching of the Jesus of the New Testament gospels.
If the gospel Paul preached was given to him by direct revelation by Jesus Christ, as Paul claimed, we could reasonably expect it would include at least some of the teachings Jesus imparted to his disciples in Jerusalem, but it doesn't. Instead it simply re-works the concepts expounded by Plato and other Greek philosophers of his time, which Paul wraps around his image of Jesus. Paul's ministry was specifically to Pagan cities dominated by Greek culture - Antioch, Ephesus and Corinth were all centres for the Greco-Roman mystery cults. No wonder the Christian church of the 1st century enjoyed incredible growth under Paul - his gospel was little more than a re-hash of what the people already knew and believed, but updated and presented in a contemporary setting.
To place Paul's writing in a historic context for the reader, Paul was a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth (d. 33 A.D.), the Twelve Apostles, the noted historian Josephus (37 A.D. - c. 100 A.D.), and the Jewish philosopher from Alexandria, Philo Judaeus (20 B.C. - 50 A.D.). Philo is one of the major Greek writers whose manuscripts, preserved through the centuries, are available to study. His writings include treatises on philosophy as well as commentary on the Hebrew law. Philo is the first writer to link Jewish law and wisdom literature with Greek wisdom literature. Philo's work is found to be very similar in language style to the Old Testament. At the same time, there are undertones of Platonism in the text.
Behind the scenes in the lives of Paul and Philo was a major debate over the translation of the Hebrew Torah into other languages. The Greek version (known to us as the Septuagint version) was grudgingly accepted, but only because Greek was considered a better language than Aramaic. Greek was the language of educated men, government agents, and traders. The belief that the Herbrew Laws should only be read in Hebrew remains in the Orthodox Jewish communities to this day. In the days of Paul and Philo, the argument was quite heated; based on some of the comments Philo made in his commentaries, Philo appears to have been directly involved in the debate: why shouldn't the Torah be translated into Greek, so that more men may come to know God? This may well have inspired Paul to be God's chosen apostle to bring that to fruition. Being a Jew, Paul would have had access to both versions, but in his writings he references only the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament. This version has since been found to contain the mistranslation of many Hebrews words and expressions, which explains why Paul often misquotes the Old Testament, and in so doing brings his readers to wrong conclusions.
Philo believed that Plato had been divinely inspired in his writing, and believed him to be second in importance only to Moses in terms of philosophical importance. Moses, if you remember, was the first man in the Bible record to receive the Laws of God from God directly. Paul appears to have studied Plato; the Philonic/Platonic influence in Paul's writing is very clear. While Paul and Philo were contemporaries, there is no primary evidence indicating that they ever met or corresponded. However, if we examine their education, their writing styles, their travels, and their common heritage, the probable influence of Philo (and by extension, Plato) on Paul becomes startlingly clear. Philo's writings may well have been the medium of transmission for Plato's ideas to Paul.
Philo's interest in the Hebrew Torah may well have sparked Paul's interest in it, but perhaps for a completely different reason. Throughout his writings, Paul seems obsessed with talking about it, to the point where one might think it had become a major stumbling block to his faith. He constantly wrote about the inadequacy of the Mosaic Law which he claimed was given purely as a temporary measure until that which is perfect had come (1 Cor 13:10). That Jesus said exactly the opposite (see Matt 5: 18-19) is conveniently overlooked or explained away by Paul's legion of devotees.
Not only may Christians wonder why Paul never once quoted the sayings of Jesus in his letters, even though he claimed apostleship in the church of Jesus Christ; they may also question why he felt the need to interweave the ideologies of Greek philosphy into a gospel that centred around a Jew named Jesus. Why did he also include in his gospel terminologies and theological concepts lifted straight out of Greek religious theology and practice of his day, faiths that 1st century Jews (and Christians both then and today) would have considered Pagan. It would be akin to the Roman Catholic Church using the Quoran as its source of doctrine and ignoring the Bible, or the reverse - Islamic teachers quoting the Bible and not the Quoran. Were not the words of Jesus convincing enough? Or was Paul a greater believer in Greek philosophy and the doctrines of the Greco-Roman cults than we care to believe.
Terms such as; pneuma (spirit); gnosis (divine knowledge); doxa (glory); sophia (wisdom); teleioi (the initiated), come straight from the Greco-Roman mystery cults of his day. Jesus never once quoted them; all he ever quoted was what is now referred to as the Old Testament. All of Paul's terms for mature or perfect Christians are variations on the Greek 'telete' - initiation, Mature is teleion, to the level of maturity is ten teleioteta, the perfect man is andra teleion, the imperfect man is ateles. Telete was a word used by Greeks in the introduction of new converts to the Mysteries. The use of these words might be excusable, were Paul using them to describe christian concepts as taught by Jesus, but he wasn't. Paul never exhorts his readers to follow the Christ example; rather, he advises them to earnestly seek the greater charismata.
The word charismata derives from the Greco-Roman mystery cult's term 'makarismos', referring to the blessed nature of one who has seen the Mysteries (W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution, 1992, p. 93), Burkert writes: One of the main characteristics of the mysteries is the makarismos, the praise of the 'blessed' status of those who have 'seen' the mysteries. Charismatic Christians might be interested to know the ancient root of their name.
Paul uses the most ubiquitous of images from the Greco-Roman Mysteries - the reaping and sowing of the crops as a symbol of mystical death and resurrection of an initiate. "And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain" 1 Cor 15:37 37 (KJV). He speaks of the sprouting of a grain of wheat as an image of the resurrection and writes: "The seed you sow does not come to life unless it has first died."
Paul directly quotes the Pagan sage Aratus, who had lived in Tarsus several centuries earlier, in describing God as "in whom we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28). In 1 Cor. 12.12, 26-27, Paul writes, "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ... and whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it [the member that suffers]; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it [the member that rejoices]. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (see also Rom. 12.4-5). Socrates says this in Book V of The Republic, "For example, if the finger of one of us is wounded, the entire community...is made aware, and all of it [the community] feels the pain as a whole." Paul writes, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phil. 1.21). Socrates, speaking in Apologia, says, "I say that to die is gain." Paul writes, "For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (1 Cor. 3.3) Socrates, speaking in Plato's Phaedo: "For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? Whence but from the body and the lusts of the body?" Paul writes, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Cor. 13:12) Socrates, again in Phaedo, takes the other side of the argument, but it is the same argument nonetheless: "I am very far from admitting that he who contemplates existence through the medium of ideas, sees them only 'through a glass darkly,' any more than he who sees them in their working and effects."
Plato writes in Sophist that the Sophists of his day were imitators of realities; Paul, in an ironic twist of Plato's comment, commands the Ephesians and Thessalonians both to be imitators of God, (Winter 88, 1 Thess. 1.6, Eph. 5.1) thus living in pursuit of the truth of Plato's Good. Paul echoes Plato in the use of a tent as a metaphor for the human body and his description of Christ as the head of the body [of Christ]. Paul and Philo both use the metaphor of a race to describe the life that a person should live. Coupled with his strong political and religious links to Jerusalem, evidence therefore exists that Philo exerted some influence on Paul.
This clearly brings out the Platonic nature of Paul's teachings. Plato had used the image of prisoners trapped in a cave who are only able to see the shadows of the outside world cast on the cave walls as an allegory for our present condition of mistaking for real what is in fact only a reflection of ultimate reality (Plato, The Republic, Book 7). For Plato, as for Paul, "At present all we see is the baffling reflection of reality." Plato teaches that philosophers are those who are released from the cave to go outside and see the reality of the dazzling light of day for themselves - face to face. This phrase is a ritual formula of the Pagan Mysteries.
The most notable deity of Greco-Egyptian religious syncretism is Serapis or Sarapis. Serapis is a union of Greek chthonic and traditional Egyptian Gods. He became associated with the Sun, healing, fertility, and even the Underworld. Later, he would be celebrated as the symbol of the universal god by the Gnostics. The cult of Serapis and his consort Isis, which had its origins in Alexandria, was widespread in the Greco-Roman world during Paul's time.
Paul calls himself a Steward of the Mysteries of God - "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." 1 Cor 4:1 (KJV) This is the exact name given to a priest in the Mysteries cult of Serapis. For Paul to refer to himself as such indicates he held office as a Steward of the Mysteries of Serapis since the phrase was unique to that faith. Perhaps this throws light on a passage in the New Testament, which has left scholars confused. At Cenchrea, near Corinth, waiting to board a ship bound for Ephesus, Paul cut his hair "for he had made a vow." (Acts 18:18).
At the port city of Cenchrea there was a temple of Isis where Greek sailors belonging to the cult of Serapis cut their hair and dedicated it to the goddess Stella Maris in hope of a safe crossing. Paul claimed he was a Jew, and to have his hair cut in such a manner was not in accordance with Jewish Law, especially as part of a ceremony to a Greek god, but here we find Paul making such a vow to the goddess Stella Maris in return for safe passage. Emperor Hadrian wrote of the citizens of Alexandria, "Here you see Christians worshiping Serapis, and worshipers of Serapis who call themselves bishops of Christ." Paul uses the same term in reference to the leaders in the Christian church including those at Alexandria, that he himself had been instrumental in establishing.
As already stated, Paul referred to himself as Steward of the Mysteries of God (1 Cor 4:1), which is the exact title given to a priest in the Mysteries Religion of Serapis. That Paul made a vow to Stella Maris, the cult god of the Mysteries Religion of Serapis, for protection while travelling indicates which god he showed allegiance to, all in the name of chritianity. Could this explain why the christians there worshipped Serapis?
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