The Pharisee Saul became Paul

Paul was a citizen of the Roman Empire and lived in the first century CE. His country of birth was the province Cilicia within the Roman Empire that is in today’s nation state Turkey. Acts 21, 39 presents Paul’s answer to the tribune of the cohort in Jerusalem who arrested him before the Temple and saved him from the mob who wanted to kill him: “I am a Jew and a citizen of the well-known city of Tarsus in Cilicia” (I use in this chapter The New Jerusalem Bible 1985). I use the data and information on the Apostle Paul that I take from the historians and exegetes to imagine and picture Paul’s life. These elements are supposed to give me some idea on events in Paul’s life for the purpose of a vague orientation. Chronological reconstruction efforts suggest that Paul got arrested in Jerusalem in the spring of 59 CE. In about 61 and 62 he travelled as a prisoner of the Roman authority from Caesarea to Rome where he was placed under house arrest. When in 64 Emperor Nero started the first persecution of Christians, Paul’s life was ended under the sword (Rowley, Harold Henry, ed. 1997. Atlas zur Bibel. 12. Wuppertal: R. Brockhaus). It is up to the experts to work and continue to work on the chronology of Paul’s life. It is also up to the exegetes and historians to check the narrative of Acts on Paul in search for data that can be affirmed by hard facts that are required by history, archeology and cultural sciences studying the Umwelt of Paul.

In 1905, an inscription was found in Delphi that contains the letter of the Emperor Claudius to the city of Delphi and mentions the proconsul Gallio as being in office in Corinth during the 26th imperial acclamation that is according to the expert in 51 CE (Lohse, Eduard. 1996. Paulus. Eine Biographie. 53. München: Beck’sche Reihe). Reading this fact together with Acts 18, 12 where we read that the Jews brought Paul before the tribunal of “Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia”, we are allowed to suppose that Paul left Corinth around the summer of 51 CE (ibid.). Still working with the data from the inscription and following the narrative on Paul in Acts the theologian and exegete Lohse calculates Paul’s conversion, or the conversion of Saul to Paul, to have happened in the year 32 CE; Lohse dates Jesus’ death in 30 CE (ibid.).

In Acts 8, 58, we hear of Saul as a persecutor in connection with the stoning of Stephen: “The witnesses put down their clothes at the feet of a young man called Saul”. In Acts 9, 1-2, we read that Saul asked the high priest in Jerusalem “for letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus that would authorize him to arrest and take to Jerusalem any followers of the Way, men or women, that he might find”. Paul never denied that he was a prosecutor of the followers of the “new Way” that is the Christians. Luke narrates in Acts 22, 3-5 Paul’s first speech of defense before the Jews in Jerusalem as a prisoner of the tribune: “‘I am a Jew’, Paul said, ‘and was born at Tarsus in Cilicia. I was brought up here in this city. It was under Gamaliel that I studied and was taught the exact observance of the Law of our ancestors. In fact, I was as full of duty towards God as you all are today. I even persecuted this Way to the death and sent women as well as men to prison in chains as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify. I even received letters from them to the brothers in Damascus, which I took with me when I set off to bring prisoners back from there to Jerusalem for punishment’”. In his second speech of defense before the high priest and the chief priests and the Sanhedrin - made up of Sadducees and Pharisees -, Paul affirms in Acts 23, 6: “Brothers, I am a Pharisee and the son of Pharisees”.

The conversion experience of Saul.

In Acts 22, 6-10, Luke narrates Paul’s account of his conversion:

“It happened that I was on that journey nearly at Damascus when in the middle of the day a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ I answered, ‘Who are you Lord?’ and he said to me, ‘I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting.’ The people with me saw the light but did not hear the voice which spoke to me. I said, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told what you have been appointed to do.’”

The important fact for me in the narrative of Paul’s conversion in Acts is Paul’s changing of faith and worldview. He started testifying and confessing that Jesus Christ was the Lord. Rabbi Gamaliel, a famous and acknowledged Jewish authority, had educated Saul. Saul’s Umwelt is the Jewish faith, the Hebrew Bible, the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms, the temple in Jerusalem and the institutions of the Jewish religion. Saul was also familiar with the Christians; his faith commanded him to persecute them. Saul was certainly familiar with the prophet Jesus. The young Saul was a contemporary of Jesus’ teaching and healing, although he never met Jesus in person. Saul considered it a blasphemy, the most terrible of all sins, to proclaim this Jesus the Messiah of the Holy One. The confession: “Yahweh, the redeemer, the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 49, 7), the One who speaks to Isaiah: “I shall make you a light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach the remotest parts of the earth” (Isaiah 49, 6) and the confession of Jesus Christ as the Lord is a contradiction for Saul. It is impossible for a Jew to confess Go’d the Only One and Jesus as Lord at the same time.

The narrative of the conversion from Saul to Paul says that suddenly Paul was embracing the belief that Jesus Christ is the Lord. He was embracing this belief, he was holding to this belief, confessing this belief, this belief became the bedrock of his worldview and spirituality; he started “calling the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 22, 16). That is the message of Luke’s narrative. Paul’s conversion as depicted here tells that he changed his mind set concerning his religious convictions and beliefs.

In Acts 13, 44-47 Luke tells of the turning away of Paul and his companion Barnabas from preaching to the Jews and approaching the gentiles. Paul and Barnabas now identify themselves with the words of Yahweh to Isaiah, who is “despised and detested by the nation” of Israel (Isaiah 49, 7). Having been rejected by the Jews, Paul, and Barnabas claim that Yahweh’s promise, “I shall make you a light to the nations so that my salvation may reach the remotest parts of the earth” (Isaiah 49, 6), will come true in their preaching of Jesus Christ to the gentiles. We read in Acts 13, 47: “I have made you a light to the nations, so that my salvation may reach the remotest parts of the earth”.

Luke used the expression light to describe Paul’s conversion and then Luke uses the term light again when speaking of Paul’s mission. Paul has become “a light to the nations”. The narrative associates this light with salvation and the claim that the Lord operates salvation; His salvation reaches the gentiles through Paul and Barnabas. From the point of view of the Jews, this appropriation of the citation from Isaiah from the Hebrew Bible for Paul’s mission in the name of Jesus Christ is blasphemy and must be punished with the death penalty. From the point of view of the Christians, this appropriation of the Old Testament in the name of Jesus Christ is the result of being empowered by the Holy Spirit. Today the question must be asked: Is it legitimate of the Christians to take the Hebrew Bible and to refer every possible verse to Jesus Christ or to the apostles? We find Paul’s answer to this question in the letter to the Romans. Paul’s theology of Israel was accepted by the Roman Catholic Church some two thousand years later.

Paul’s theology of Israel gets finally assessed at the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). We read in the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate 4.2:

“The Church, therefore, cannot forget that she received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles (Romans 11:17-24). Indeed, the Church believes that by His cross Christ, Our Peace, reconciled Jews and Gentiles, making both one in Himself (Ephesians 2:14-16)”. (Paul VI. Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council).

The psychology of the conversion that tries to reconstruct what happened to Paul on the way to Damascus is of great interest for the readers of the narrative in the twenty-first century. Therefore, it is very important to tell the modern reader of Acts that we are not able to tell from the narrative what the psychological perspective of Paul’s experience was. We must bear in mind that in the first century CE the term psychology was not part of common language. Nevertheless, it is legitimate to inquire into the emotional part of Paul’s conversion experience. “Emotions provide experiences with individual meaning and determine how we remember things and what we remember” (Aichhorn, Wolfgang, and Helmut Kronberger. 2012. “The Nature of Emotions. A Psychological Perspective.” In Yearbook 2011. Emotions from Ben Sira to Paul, edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel and Jeremy Corley, 515–525. 515. Berlin: De Gruyter).

Emotions are the glue for personal relationships and “emotions and the physical body are one inseparable unit” (ibid.). The picture of Paul’s blindness in the narrative of Acts tells me that we better do not describe Paul’s experience in the terms of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Natural sight, physical vision, is a possibility condition for personal relationship and the narrative insists on Paul’s physical blindness which means, there is no visual relationship. Natural sight is an important factor in the development of a child’s personality and identity (ibid.). “Visual experiences play an important role in the first year of life” (ibid.: 517). The face-to-face transactions between the baby and the mother’s face constitute an important part of the mother-child dyad. The interaction of reciprocal influences is regulated by emotions, form the child’s identity, and constitute the basis for her or his later interactions with individuals and personal relationships (ibid.: 515).

Describing with the help of the narrative of Acts the conversion experience of Paul does not allow to speak of a personal relationship according to the understanding of psychology. Empathy, the emotional understanding of another person, fear, anger, happiness, disgust, contempt is part of one’s emotions and experiences. It is hard work to learn to identify one’s emotions, to accept them, to speak about them and to integrate them to ensure physical, psychic, social, cultural, economic, and spiritual integrity. If a person does not tell us about the state of her emotions and if we do not see the person, we cannot know or guess her emotional state. A woman or man can speak about her or his emotions. The narrative of Paul’s blindness insists on faith and not on the physiology of sight. We must not forget to use the pictures of the Bible according to how the Biblical narratives teach us to use them. Faith sentences do not allow theologizing to speak of the relation of women and men with Jesus Christ as a social relationship. Faith is a hope, and a conviction, faith is not a discourse between speakers. The expression of faith by a group of faithful is called confession. Confession by the assembly of the faithful is an empowerment of the group’s solidarity, it is interpersonal. Faith in Jesus Christ is not an interpersonal relationship. The consequences of faith in Jesus Christ are seen in the social relations of the believers. The Biblical picture of blindness in Paul’s faith experience makes it clear that the experience of Jesus Christ is not part of the Umwelt of Paul but of his interiority, there is consciousness, there is self-consciousness, and the experience concerns the constitution of a personal worldview.

The theologians must learn to accept the knowledge of the sciences of psychology and neurosciences. In science the truth values true or false operate according to the two valued logic of affirmation or negation. Concerning the speaking about faith and worldviews we must enlarge the two valued logic. The theologians work with a three valued logic and the third truth value assesses that I cannot know. People of Christian faith must be ready to reflect on the consequences of their speaking of Go’d and Jesus Christ according to the truth value “I cannot know”. The narratives of the Sacred Scripture constantly speak of Go’d and Jesus Christ, and they express what one means when speaking about Go’d or Jesus Christ. They do not express an empiric fact who Go’d is or who Jesus Christ is, because the Scriptures are about faith-sentences.

First, the narrative of Luke is important for what it shows. An important observation that I take from the narrative is Paul addressing the voice as “Lord”. He acknowledges Jesus as Christ and as the Lord. From the point of the narrative, this shows that the conversion is happening or had already happened. Already in Acts 9, 3-9, Luke had given his account of the conversion of Saul. Logically, the third person singular is used to narrate Paul’s experience. In Acts 22, Luke lets Paul narrate his experience. Paul uses the first person singular. The words of the voice speaking to Paul and Paul’s question in both narratives are almost identical.

Both narratives speak of a “light from heaven”. In Acts 9, 3, we read: “…suddenly a light from heaven shone all round him” and Acts 22, 6 reads: “… a bright light from heaven suddenly shone round me”. The narrative that speaks of a light from heaven shows that we are not told of a light we normally perceive as daylight. The narrative clearly states that Paul had lost his powers of vision and shows that Paul was profoundly absorbed with an experience that concerned only him and his consciousness.

Luke’s narrative of Paul’s conversion confirms the particular character of the event that touches Paul. The travel companions of Paul perceive a voice that is not identified,they do not see anybody, and they remain speechless: “the men travelling with Saul stood there speechless, for though they heard the voice they could see no one” (Acts 9, 7). The men travelling with Saul had a very different experience than Saul. We are not told much about it. The men travelling with Saul did not identify the voice with the Lord. Therefore, in Biblical terms it is allowed to say that they did not see the Lord. In Acts 22, 9, where Paul speaks of his conversion experience, the narrative makes Paul say: “The people with me saw the light but did not hear the voice which spoke to me”. We are not told what kind of light the men travelling with Saul saw according to Paul’s account. Certainly, it was not the light of the faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord. Both narratives (Acts 9, 8 and Acts 22, 11) make clear that Paul’s experience and the experience of the bystanders are fundamentally different. Both reports show the same consequences for the men travelling with Saul after witnessing Paul’s experience: They had to lead the blind Paul by the hand to Damascus.

In Acts 22, 11, Paul attributes the blindness not to the brightness of the light but to the glory - Greek doxa - of the light. The term “glory” is usually used only to be predicated of Go’d. I am thinking therefore of the possibility of legitimately arguing that the narrative of Luke uses the term “glory” to indicate that what is happening to Paul is Go’d’s initiative. The Septuagint translates the Hebrew word kebod with “glory”. In Exodus 16, 10 the “glory of God appeared in the cloud”, in Leviticus 9, 23 “the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people”, and we find the term “glory of the Lord” with the prophets and in the New Testament. God may speak out of the cloud (Exodus 24, 16), the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud but neither Moses nor any other Israelite or Christian ever got to see the invisible God. We read in Dei Verbum 2 that for the Christians the revelation of “the invisible God Himself” is Jesus Christ (Paul VI. 1965. “Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum.” The Holy See. http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html). I fear, Dei Verbum forgets that the sentence „Jesus Christ is the revelation of the invisible Go’d” is a faith sentence. There is no need for theologians to present faith sentences in the form of an empiric hypothesis. Faith does not convert faith sentences to empiric sentences.

Luke claims that Go’d stands behind Paul’s conversion. Paul was blind during the experience that made him convert to Jesus Christ as his Lord, we read in the narrative of Acts. The narrative of Acts paints a picture of physical blindness; Paul was not able to walk to Damascus by himself. This picture of blindness in connection with the picture of Jesus Christ speaking to Paul is very useful for getting some insight into the relationship of all persons with Go’d. We better do not speak in an anthropomorphic way of Go’d, because the experience of Go’d by a human person is not that of a relationship between human persons. We cannot say who Go’d is, we say what we mean when speaking of Go’d; and logical coherence should be part of that meaning.

The consequences of the conversion completely changed Paul’s life. He turned from a persecutor of the Christians to a follower of Christ, from a Jew to a Christian Jew and Paul got on a mission:

Luke narrates that a disciple of Jesus in Damascus, Ananias, had a vision concerning Saul becoming Paul. The Lord told Ananias in this vision, Acts 9, 15-19: “… Go, for this man is my chosen instrument to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for my name. Then Ananias went. He entered the house, and laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, I have been sent by the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, so that you may recover your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit’. It was as though scales fell away from his eyes and immediately, he was able to see again. So, he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food he regained his strength”.

The predicted consequences of Paul’s conversion will all come true. He will become the Apostle of the Gentiles. This was not evident from the beginning of his conversion. Luke narrates that the apostles in Jerusalem were hesitant to accept Paul as a disciple of Jesus. Only after Barnabas had testified, “how the Lord had appeared to him and spoken to him on his journey, and how he had preached fearlessly at Damascus in the name of Jesus” (Acts 9, 27), Paul was given the same status as witness of Christ as the apostles.

Ananias “laid his hands on Saul” and spoke in the name of “the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here” (Acts 9, 17). Luke centers his narrative completely and coherently on the initiative of the Lord. The Lord appeared to Paul, the Lord makes Ananias bless Paul and the Lord sent Ananias to Paul so that he may “be filled with the Holy Spirit” and get baptized (ibid.). For Luke it is a matter of fact that the Holy Spirit is a gift offered by Go’d. We learn this from Stephen who, in his speech before getting stoned in the presence of Saul, tells his persecutors in Acts 7, 51-52: “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted?”

At this point, I would like to draw attention to the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and Dei Verbum. Orthodox theologians never forgot that a comprehensive theology of the Holy Spirit is central to the transmission of the faith and encouraged the Council fathers to assess that what the Apostles “had learned through the prompting of the Holy Spirit” (Dei Verbum 7, 1) always must be seen as an authentic transmission of the Gospel. Dei Verbum 8 assesses the fundamental validity condition of the help of the Holy Spirit in the transmission of the Gospel: “This tradition which comes from the Apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit”.

Acts 22, 12-16 narrates the encounter of Ananias with Paul from the perspective of Paul:

“Someone called Ananias, a devout follower of the Law and highly thought of by all the Jews living there, came to me; he stood beside me and said, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ Instantly my sight came back, and I was able to see him. Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Upright One and hear his own voice speaking, because you are to be his witness before all humanity, testifying to what you have seen and heard. And now why delay? Hurry and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name’”.

Luke’s narrative of Paul’s confession on his conversion makes Ananias assess that it was Go’d’s initiative to choose Paul. The Go’d of Abraham wanted Paul to see and hear “the Upright One” as the New Jerusalem Bible translates the Greek words ton dikaion. Other possible translations are the “Just One” or the “Righteous One” that is Jesus Christ the Lord as we learn from the following verses (Acts 22, 17-21). This predicate for Jesus Christ is very important and its legitimate use is authorized as God’s will in the narrative of Luke.

Luke talks of political and religious justice; Jesus Christ teaches justice and brings justice to the world. Matthew narrates at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill” (Matthew 5, 6). From Matthew 5, 10, we know that Jesus is talking about justice in this world: “Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs”. The expression “uprightness” that is used in both verses above, translates the Greek term dikaiosúenae that is also justice or righteousness. Persecuting is a human activity and the church of the first centuries coherently interpreted Matthew 5, 6 and 10 as real persecution and not as a symbolic one. Luz refers to Gregory of Nyssa as an example of a church father who follows this interpretation of justice as a virtue that must be realized and is the contrary of greed, which is a sin (Luz 1985, 210).

Jesus teaches and realizes justice. When we hear of Jesus teaching and realizing justice, we are not only thinking of the realization of justice in the context of Israel that is in the context of Yahweh “the God of our ancestors” as Ananias calls Him in Acts 22, 14 or in the context of the New Testament. In the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Nostra Aetate 2 from 1965, we read about what “is true and holy” in the religions of the world. The Catholic Church “regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men”. As a concrete example of such a teaching of justice that reflects “Truth”, I would like to understand the Egyptian text The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant that was written in Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (twenty-first to seventeenth century BC) during the 12th Dynasty (twentieth to eighteenth century BC) ((Jeffers, Chike. 2013. “Embodying Justice in Ancient Egypt: The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant as a Classic of Political Philosophy.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 21 (3): 421–442. 422. doi:10.1080/09608788.2013.77160). It is the first text of humankind that uses the term “way” in the sense of a road or street as a term for moral behavior.

Luke’s narrative presents some elements for describing terms like Holy Spirit and baptism.

The narrative of Ananias laying his hands on Saul (Acts 9, 17) makes Paul physically see Ananias and fills him with the Holy Spirit. Paul is healed from his blindness. Paul can again enjoy his physical-psychic-social-spiritual integrity. Paul can say: “I am ok”. The realization of personal relationships, of the integration in a social, cultural and spiritual Umwelt and the sharing of the belief in Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s life, as the model for one’s living, and social choices are all elements that we find in the narrative that speaks of the Holy Spirit filling Paul. Baptism can be seen here as the social realization of Paul’s choice to become a Christian that is the celebration and thanksgiving of Paul and for Paul becoming a member of the Christian community. In the speech of Paul, it is Ananias who confirms and assesses that Go’d had empowered Paul to be His “witness before all humanity” and it is Ananias inviting Paul to get “baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name”. The Holy Spirit, baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and washing away the sins go together in the narrative. Romans 5, 5 gives the description that the Holy Spirit is the gift of Go’d’s life, the pouring of Go’d’s love into our hearts.

How would I describe my state of consciousness that would correspond with the expression “I am filled with the Holy Spirit”? I would describe this state of my consciousness as an emotional equilibrium of experiencing my personal integrity, as a state of inner peace and calm and of gratitude for being empowered to call the name of Jesus Christ. I understand “calling the name of Jesus Christ” as the beginning realization of social choices of a Christian life.

The Christian tradition calls the Holy Spirit a comforter because the state of consciousness that corresponds to the state of the Holy Spirit empowers to make social choices of love, to make choices that preserve peace, and to a way of life that avoids sin and misery. The new life that is associated with the consciousness of the Holy Spirit empowers us with Go’d’s love (Romans 5, 5) to lead a life filled with peace and love that is directly connected with Jesus Christ. In the twenty-first century, the assembled people of Go’d still pray the ninth century hymn of Rabanus Maurus “Come Creator Spirit” before realizing important choices of Christians. The Holy Spirit is attributed the function of a creator. Indeed, one can describe the order of life according to the teachings and healings of Jesus Christ as a new creation.

Empowered with the Holy Spirit, Paul was able to realize the prophecy that Ananias had received concerning Paul. Acts 9, 15-19: “… Go, for this man is my chosen instrument to bring my name before gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for my name”.

Paul lives and preaches egalitarian bonds between faithful women and men.

Acts 13 and 14 speak of the first mission of Paul. From Antioch, he will travel to Cyprus, through the Roman provinces of Pamphylia and Pisidia and return to Antioch. After having attended the Council of the Apostles (48 or 49 CE) in Jerusalem his second mission (Acts 15, 36 – 18, 22) will lead him from Antioch through the provinces of Cilicia, Pisidia, Galatia, and Asia Minor to Macedonia. He will speak before the council of the Areopagus in Athens and continue his journey to Corinth and from there to Ephesus and back to Caesarea. His third mission (Acts 18, 23 – 21, 17) leads from Antioch again through Cilicia to Ephesus in Asia, again through Macedonia to Corinth and back to Philippi and along the shores of Asia, Lycia, and Pamphylia back over the Mediterranean to Tyre and Jerusalem (Rowley 1997, 26–27). Persecutions, imprisonment, beatings and other difficulties with Jews, Greeks and Romans are just some of the sufferings that Paul will have to endure. Paul was a traveler, a missionary and a founder of Christian communities around the Roman world of the Mediterranean.

In Acts 13, 44-47 Luke tells of the turning away of Paul and his companion Barnabas from preaching to the Jews and approaching the gentiles. Paul preached in the synagogues of the Jewish diaspora in the eastern Mediterranean. There were a few Jews who began following the new way of Jesus Christ. Most of the Jews who listened to Paul preaching the Gospel were not impressed, some got angry at Paul, and some got violent, and Paul had to flee their synagogues and communities. The synagogues in the Jewish diaspora were open to interested non-Jews. These men from different faiths and worldviews from the Umwelt of the synagogues listened to Paul. Having been rejected by the Jews, Paul, and Barnabas decided to preach to these people that were called Gentiles. Gentiles had not been converting to Judaism in significant numbers. Gentiles were converting to the faith in Jesus Christ, the Lord. Paul preached the Gospel of the Lord; he did not preach Jewish law. Paul did not impose circumcision on the male converts to the faith in Jesus Christ. Nor did he prescribe the uncircumcised Gentiles to observe Jewish food laws; they could buy and eat food that had been offered in the pagan temples. Converts to Jesus Christ could go on living within the society in which they lived according to their own cultural heritage. Entrance requirement to the Christian community was faith in Jesus Christ as the Lord; that means stopping any worship of a god from the Roman, Greek or any other culture.

The Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem wanted to impose Jewish laws on the Gentiles who became Christians. At the Council of the Apostles Paul faced the conflict with Peter and the community of the apostles in Jerusalem. Paul was a fearless and bright negotiator. He got his way and promised the poor Jerusalem community financial help from the communities of the Gentiles.

In the Jewish society as in the Roman Empire the patriarchate constituted the dominant social structure. Women and men were not equal, but men controlled and oppressed women. It was nearly impossible for women to dispose over significant self-determination and freedoms. Paul founded the first Christian communities within this suppressing patriarchal social, economic, cultural, and spiritual context. In the communities that he founded and that were called house-churches, because the Christians met in the houses of Christian couples, women and men, there was equality between women and men. Speaking of human rights or of feminism in connection with the first Christian communities of Paul is anachronistic. Yet, it is important for the Roman Catholic Church to assess that the Apostle Paul did not discriminate women in his churches. On the contrary, his letters give testimony to the respect and appreciation of the important work in the communities by women. Women were not only supporting the community, but they were also leading communities, they were presiding liturgies and teaching the Gospel; Paul called them apostles and co-workers and cooperated on an egalitarian basis. Paul’s mission was very effective. That was because his churches were free of hierarchies and free from a coordinating center, also their relations of aide and assistance were based on reciprocity.

For the communities of Paul, it is true that the Christian movement of the first century CE was constituted as a religious counterculture to the Jewish religion and particularly to the binding polytheistic state cult of the Roman Empire. The egalitarian social structure of Paul’s communities was subversive of traditional hierarchical and social patterns. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza is right insisting that the egalitarian structure of the first Christian communities, soon was erased “as institutional Christianity reintegrated itself into patriarchal and slave-holding social systems. Patriarchal Christians rewrote the tradition” …, “not only for the organization of the Christian church and society, but also as a metaphor for the relationship of Christians to God and Christ” (Rosemary. Radford. Ruether. 1987 “Feminist Theology” 391-396. 394. In: The New Dictionary of Theology. Editors: Joseph A. Komonchak. Mary Collins. Dermot A. Lane. The Liturgical Press: Collegeville, Minnesota).

Thanks to the efforts of critical feminist theology “a comprehensive rethinking of tradition” has taken place (ibid. 393). Over the centuries, Roman Catholic male theologians failed to erase and silence all Catholic female writing, thinking, and giving testimony to the name of Jesus Christ. “The work of recovery of women’s history and theological reflection in the Christian tradition” of feminist theology discovers “foremothers”, empowers “women’s experience” of faith, and insists on being treated equally as the male clerical elite of the Roman Catholic Church (ibid. 394). Roman Catholic feminists rightfully claim access to the priestly, prophetic, and governmental offices in the Church as the Apostle Paul had practiced in his communities.

Ending the discrimination of women in the Roman Catholic Church is not about returning to the structures of the Christian communities of the Apostle Paul. It is true, many scholars acknowledge not only the presence of women office holders in early Christianity but also a centuries-old tradition of ordaining women, at least until the twelfth century (Teresa. Berger. 2011. 29. Gender Differences and the Making of Liturgical History. Lifting a veil on liturgy’s past. Ashgate Publishing: Famham UK). I am not a historian and therefore I cannot affirm nor negate Berger’s assessment. My point is about the present Roman Catholic discrimination of women. Roman Catholic feminists, be they women, men or queer, are right claiming access to the priestly, prophetic, and governmental offices in the Church. Even the Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church gives the reason for an egalitarian Church structure.

Canon 204 §2 of the valid Codex of Canon Law that is from 1983 reads:

“The Christian faithful are those who, inasmuch as they have been incorporated in Christ through baptism, have been constituted as the people of God. For this reason, made sharers in their own way in Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal function, they are called to exercise the mission which God has entrusted to the Church to fulfill in the world, in accord with the condition proper to each” (https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/cic_index_en.html).

Canon 204 §2 assesses that Go’d has entrusted the mission of priestly, prophetic, and royal function to the Church, to the people of God, to the faithful. At the same time the canon introduces male domination over the word of Jesus Christ and faithful women, men and queer by devaluing the condition of the faithful and privileging the condition of male clerical celibates.

The reason for an egalitarian Church structure is the teaching and healing of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul writes in the Letter to the Galatians 3, 28:

“There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female—for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

The Roman Catholic Canon Law claims that the Christian faithful constitute the people of God and share Christ’s priestly, prophetic, and royal function. How is it possible to legitimate that Christ, the Lord, would permit discrimination, suppression and silencing of faithful who are not celibate males? There is no legitimation for faithful dominating faithful. Jesus contrasts the kingdom of Go’d with the kingdoms of worldly monarchs (Matthew 20, 1-6; 21, 28-32). Abuse of power, violence, humiliation, exploitation, and suppression must not characterize the social choices of the followers of Jesus (Mark 10, 42-45) and Jesus’ own power is limited by the universal “kingdom of Go’d” (1 Corinthians 15, 23-28) (ibid.).