1991 - William Loader - Hellenism and the Abandonment of Particularism in Jesus and Paul

7/27/2019 1991 - William Loader - Hellenism and the Abandonment of Particularism in Jesus and Paul

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Pacifica 4 (1991)

Hellenism a n d the A ba nd on m en t ofParticularism in Jesus a n d Paul

W i l l i a m L o a d e r

Abstract: Recent research has been reminding us of the extent of theHellenisation of G alilee. This calls for a reassessment of the possibleimpact upon Jesus of life in a crosscultural context. The traditionsabout his sitting lightly towards certain aspects of the Torah shouldbe seen against this background. We should also consider the possibleinfluence of popular critiques of religion. The latter may w ell havehad an impact on Paul's thought as he grappled with the role ofTorah. The origins of Christianity need to be seen in the context ofsuch major cultural shifts and discussions of the particular and theuniversal in religion.

STUDIES OF GALILEE over recent decadesi indicate that we mustabandon the view that Jesus came from a rural backwater of Aramaicspeaking peasantry. Geog raphy alone should have alerted us to thefalsity of this understanding. Galilee belongs, along with the valley ofJezreel and Megiddo, to the most accessible parts of southern Palestine.There the coastal range, which k eeps at bay the plains, is broken northof Mount C armel and op ens the door to the M editerranean w orld in thewest and to the major transjordan trade route and the Dekapolis ofHe llenistic cities in the east. From the Sea of Galilee to the coast is

1 See especially S. Frey ne, Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels (Philadelphia :Fortress, 1988); also D. R. Ed wa rds, "Wh o Were the First U rban Ch ristians?Urbanization in Galilee in the First Century", a paper read at the Society forBiblical Literatu re Intern ation al Co nference, Sheffield, July 1988. No te alsoM. Hengel's new book on Judea in the first century, The "Hellenization" ofJudea in the First Century after Christ (London: SCM, 1989) and gen era lly, J.H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism (New York: Doubleday, 1988).


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246 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)scarcely 40 km as the crow flies. It is on the plains of Me gidd o, Arm ageddon, that many battles have been fought, and it is not by chancethat visionaries foresaw this as the place of the final showdown of thenations.Low er G alilee in the time of Jesus has been e stimated to be am ong themost populated areas of the Roman empire, 2 with a number of largecities like Sepphoris and Tiberias, and smaller ones like Capernaum,forming a network which linked the major trading world with smallertow ns and v illage life in the Ga lilean hinte rlan d. In the larger citiesHellenistic influence in town planning, architecture, cult and lifestyle,would have been strong and we may assume with confidence that eventhose who, like Jesus, mostly frequented the smaller towns like Capernaum, would have had regular encounters with the wider cosmopolitanwo rld of Hellenism. Ca pern aum , w here Jesus app ears to have lived,was also a significant border post to the Dekapolis.

The pattern of a Jesus coming from the pristine rural backwater ofpious Galilean Judaism to be crucified in the big city and, with Easter,to begin a movement that emerged from a sheltered Judaism into theHellenist ic world of diaspora Judaism and i ts cosmopoli tan paganenvironm ent, mu st be red raw n. Jesus may even have taugh t in Greek -ano ther good reason for stu de nts to learn Greek! - or at least lived in anenv ironm ent alrea dy strongly influenced b y Hellenism. A strong casecan be made beyond this that not only his world, but also his thinking,bear marks of attitudes to life and religion as much characteristic ofHellenism as of Judaism and that his origins in the cross-culturalGalilean environment had an important bearing on his ministry andmessage . 3 In this article I want to explore the issues in overview, byconside ring Jesus and Paul in turn.

I. JESUS

1 w an t to begin in the briefest wa y by outlinin g central aspec ts ofJesus' teaching and the wa y they relate to Judaism. Jesus annou nced2 So D. R. Edwards, 1988 International Society for Biblical Literaturemeeting: Capernaum estimated 10-15,000; Magdala, 10km away, 40,000(Josephus); Tiberias 30-40,000 and Sepphoris 30-40,000 (some debate aboutextent of Hellenistic development in it early in the first century - at least bylate in the century it had a theatre holding 3-4,000). There were therefore asignificant number of cities and villages in a 20-35km stretch.3 Jerusalem was also strongly influenced by Hellenism but, it may beargued, was less cross-cultural (in the sense of having a significant Gentilepopulation) than Galilee of the Gentiles.


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Loader : The A ba nd on m en t o f Par t icu la r ism 247God ' s ne w in i t i a t ive in h i s to ry : God ' s impe nd ing re ign , the k ingdom o fGod. I t was good news , p romis ing sa lva t ion , o f ten por t rayed as a g rea tfe l lows h ip fea st a f te r p roph e t i c m od e l s . Th e p r om is e a l s o s e t theagenda for l i fe now, s ince i t ca l led for acceptance of the promise , jo iningthe com m uni ty of p rom ise and l iv ing in accordance w i th i t s hope .4

T h i s p r o g r a m m e w a s n o t a d e p a r t u r e f ro m J e w i s h h o p e b u t a nexpress io n of i t . Jesus p ro c la im ed th e im pe nd in g re ign of the G od ofIs rae l . I t i s the re fo re im po r ta n t to no te cen t ra l e le m en ts o f Is rae l ' sf a ith . The s e inc lu de , in pa r t i c u la r : T o r a h / s c r ip tu re , c u l t , l a nd , a n de lec t ion as G od 's people . These a re aspec ts of a wh ole . A n a t tack onany one of these would be seen as an a t tack on Torah itself, and Torah isthe un de r ly in g a u t ho r i ty fo r a l l. J e s us ' m in i s t ry of goo d ne w s ha ddirect bearing on each of these centra l e lements of Is rael 's fa i th .I t a ppe a rs tha t J e s us unde rs tood h ims e l f a s upho ld ing the To ra h /sc r ip tu re . If any th in g , m an y of h is teach ings take sc r ip tu ra l law s andma ke the m s t r i c t e r : fo r e xa mple , on murde r , a du l t e ry , d ivo rc e , oa th s ,r e t a l i a t ion , a nd lov ing one ' s ne ighbou r , to c i t e on ly thos e o f theM att he an ant i the ses (Ma tt 5 :21-48). Th e re ig n of G od cal led for a to ta lobe d ie nc e a nd th i s r a d ic al i s ed the La w 's de m a n ds , s om e t ime s e ve n to apo in t whe re the ne w de ma nd s tood in d i re c t c on f l i c t w i th the o ldform ula t ion ( fo r ins tance , on oa ths ) and so m et im es wh er e i t ca l led fo rab an do nm en t of the o ld ( fo r ins tance , on d ivorce) .But Jesus faced confl ic t wi th Jewis h au th or i t ie s a lso ab ou t cu l t icaspec ts o f Torah prov is ion , bo th in re la t ion to food and pur i ty laws andin re la t ion to the temple cu l t tha t governed the sys tem in accordancewi th the p lace g ive n the cu l tus in ho ly sc r ip tu re . Even if the rad ica lJesus of Mark 7 , w ho a ba nd on s sc r ip tu ra l law on c lean an d unc lean food ,i s p roba b ly a p ro je c t ion ba c k o f the c onc lu s ions o f l a t e r Ch r i s t i a ngen era t i ons (see Pe te r ' s v is ion in Ac ts 10) , a s t ro ng case can be m ad etha t the beg inn ings o f such a s tance l ie wi th Jesus himself. In ea r ly

Chr i s t i a n i ty the y a re r e l a t e d to i s s ue s o f e a t ing wi th Ge n t i l e s a ndeating food offered to idols : in Jesus they are re la ted to his readiness togo be y ond the no rm . H e d id s o by a s s oc ia t ing a nd e a t in g w i th th er i tua l ly unc le a n a nd by o f fe r ing to bo th the r i tua l ly a nd mora l ly4 I am not persu aded by those wh o deny to the historical Jesus such aneschatological orientation: see for example M. Borg, Jesus: A New Vision (SanFrancisco: Harper and Row, 1987); B. L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence (Philadelph ia: Fortress, 1988). This is mo re than a plea for som e authen tic Jesus-tradition behind future "kingdom of God" sayings; it is also based on an

und erstan ding of a range of other ma terial, inclu ding par able s, rev ersalsayings, and so on. In this I agree with Cha rlesw orth, Jesus within Judaism,and E. P. Sande rs, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985), for instance.


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248 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)unclean belonging an d acceptance amon g Go d's people without, in mostcases, following the biblical provisions for re-entry, which entailedrituals of purification governed by the temple cultus.5

This departure was somewhat exacerbated by Jesus ' healing ministry, which both i l lustrated an implici t claim to divine power andmade people's re-entry into the community possible, again without, forthe most part, following the scriptural provisions for such re-entry.What becomes of Torah, scripture, temple, God's gifts, when they aredisregarded in this way?Lan d w as also cen tral to Israelite faith. Possession w as land to alarge degree, at least in the sense that this, too, was commonly understood (and still is) as G od 's covenan t gift to Israel. Jesus called peo pleto give up po ssessions and follow him.Election as G od 's people w as also central. Jesus ha d been associatedw ith John w ho defied a dep ende nce on sonship of Abrah am . Jesustravelled to Gentile territory and had enc ounters w ith Gentiles. He re,however, we should observe that generally he is more to be noted forpre ser vin g a stron g Israel identity. Of Jesus' act of com passion to w ard sZacc haeus, L uke ha s Jesus explain: "For he, too, is a son of Abrah am."Jesus probably chose twelve disciples and he understood that both hisministry and that of his disciples was to be only to the lost sheep of thehouse of Israel (Matt 10:5f, 23; 15:24).The differences betw een Jesus and c ontemp orary Judaism should notbe exagg erate d. At on e level, the radicalisation of the de m an ds ofTorah flow from the eschatological vision and have their parallel inoth er gro up s of the time (for exam ple, the Essenes). The Phariseeswere already reflecting a form of egalitarianism, at least in relationship to cultic holiness . W hen Jesus use s creation and eve ryd ay life

5 San ders, in Jesus and Judaism, argues that the significance of Jesus wasnot brea ch of pur ity law s. Mixing with Gentiles wa s almost as inevitable asme nstruation and childbirth for wom en - the se are not sins, but events requiringsubs eque nt purification r ites. No r, he argu es, should w e see Jesus ' appe al tosinners as distinctive; other Jews, too, appealed for sinners to return . Jesus didnot call people to repent. Rather, Jesus offered sinners a place with out requir ingof them th e usual rites of re-entry through the temple. I think Sanders is rightin this last point, but not in his attempt to rule out any calls to repentance byJesus as inauthe ntic, nor in his relegation of the purity issue. I think it likelythat Jesus caused offence by deliberately going beyond the norms of inevitablecultic pollution in his mixing with outcasts and the impure, especially atm eals. H e did not seek to avoid such pollution w hen it wa s avoidable; thisalso seems to be the point in Peter's contact w ith the centurion in Acts and in th epresence of Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians in a common meal atAntioch as reported in Galatians 2.


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Loader: The A ban don m ent of Particularism 249examples in his teaching, these may be reminiscent of the wisdomtradition s of the Old Testam ent and Juda ism. Similarly, Jesus ap pe arsnot only to pronounce judgement on the temple, but also to share withm any contem poraries the hope for a restored tem ple in a short time. AsFreyne points out , 6 we have no evidence of Jesus ever refusing thetemp le due s. His vision of the kingdo m seems also to have espo usedthe prophetic hope that the Gentiles would join God's people in theeschaton. H is appe al to divin e com passion is solidly rooted in OldTestament expressions of God's initiative for his broken and erringpeople, especially as expressed in second Isaiah.I do not believe, therefore, that Jesus saw himself as abandoningTorah, temp le, land or peo ple. The issues seem to have been to a largedegre e how these w ere interpre ted. And this w as crucial. The factthat early Christianity faced a range of issues with no initial answerssuggests that Jesus had not instructed his disciples in a way whichclarified precisely the role of Torah, temple, land and chosen peopleand had certainly not left the impression that these were in any senseto be ab an do ne d. The disciples still had to gra pp le with the legitimacy of the Gentile mission, the possibility of waiving circumcisionand food laws, the place of temple and Jerusalem, and the continuingstatu s of Israel as a chosen peo ple. They we re far from un an im ou s intheir conclusions.7

So far I have deliberately discussed the issues surrounding Jesuswith out referring to the Galilean context. I now wa nt to ask to wha tdegree consideration of the Galilean context might supplement theabove picture of Jesus and Judaism . Two aspects need to be distinguished here: one relates to the impact of living so close to a Gentileenvironm ent, the pheno me non of being exposed to diversity of culture;the other relates to specific influences from within Hellenism.People are often profoundly affected by being exposed to culturesother than their ow n, frequently mu ch more than they realise. Thestory of such encounters and the responses to them is at the heart ofmuch that went on in Judaism in the Hellenistic period - and this is soof most other peoples of the period, not least in Greece itself, and,abov e all, initially in A the ns. The ran ge of shoc king ex perien cesincludes realisat ion that there are other gods, other value systems,other political systems.Such plurality may evoke a fortress mentality where the "other" is6 Freyne, Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels, 239 f.7 I have discussed this in more detail in my article, "Jesus Left Loose Ends" ,Pacifica 2(1989)212-28.


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250 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)seen as a threat. The drive tow ards synthesis may lead to an inclusivesyncretism, or the attempt to come to terms with the diversity maycreate a ne w basis of un ity. This often entails a relativising reap pr op riation of one 's ow n tradition s. The plurality calls into question theparticularities of the kind exemplified in Judaism's attitude towardsits Torah, cult, land and election.The initial wave of Hellenism which swept through Palestine wasstemmed for a short time through the Maccabean revolt in the secondce ntu ry BCE. Its influence co ntinue d, how ever, both in Palestine itselfan d in the diasp ora. W ith few exceptions, the dom inan t pattern w asnot assimilat ion to Hellenism or syncretism but adaptation whileholding fast to the particularity of Torah, temple, land and election.Even Philo of Alexandria, who appropriates the most devastat ingcritiques of cult religion Hellenism could offer, and who develops aplethora of allegorical symbolic elucidations of scripture, draws theline quite clearly: i t is unacceptable to abandon obedience to thepro vision s of the cult set do w n in scripture . He round ly dissociateshimself from some who have crossed this line.8 Philo belongs morebroadly within a stream of thought which sought to incorporate thephilosophical world of Hellenism by seeing it as derivative fromMoses, a pattern adopted in a similar way in the second century CE bythe Christ ian apologists.

Of course there were others who shut up shop and maintained afortress m entality in respo nse to the new influences. Some of them, likethe Essenes of Qumran and the Pharisees, at least judging by theirrabbinic successors, we re muc h m ore comprom ised from their intendedposition than they would have recognised.W hat abo ut Jesus? As we have seen, Jesus show s no signs ofabandoning the pillars of Israel 's faith: Torah, temple, land, election.Yet might his part icular understanding of these have been enrichedalso by the w orld of hu m an ity which formed his earthly context? Heunderstood his mission as directed towards Israel, but he would comeinto contac t reg ularly w ith Ge ntiles in his env iron m en t. Did Sep-phoris, 4 km from his childhood town of Nazareth, already have itsam ph i thea t re and pag an temples? Had he observed popularwa nde ring preachers of the Cynic mould passing through Caperna um ontheir w ay to or from the Dek apolis cities? W hat conversations wou ldhe have had with people of his community with a smattering ofHellenistic education, a little learning of Hellenistic virtues of lovean d tolerance? H ow easily could he ma intain the part iculari ty of

8 See Philo, The Migration of Abraham, 89-93.


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Loader: The A ban don m ent of Particularism 251Israel 's claim for its temple, its particular dietary and purity laws, itssacred land claims? W as his retu rn to a creation-theo logy, and tofinding God in the day-to-day events depicted in his parables, anoption to think in universal modes consistent with his setting?None of Jesus' teaching shows, to my mind, the impact of popularPlatonism - not in the way we find illustrated in the letter to theHeb rews. A heavenly dime nsion was present in the apocalypticthought with which Jesus was at home and it is always possible thatnotions of incorruptible heavenly riches are a faint echo of suchinfluence w ithin that system. But the possibility that his lax atti tud etowards purity laws derives from the relativising and universalisingimpact of his social env ironm ent o ugh t to be considered .

The same might be said of his loosening of the bond with the land.This loosening belongs also to his loosening of the bond with family(quite radically so) and with priestly auth ority. Som e of the closestparallels to such radicalism are found in the Hellenistic world amongthe Stoics and Cynics and they were quite possibly present on thestreets of lower Galilee.9 On the other hand, however, we do not findin extant Jesus-tradition any indications of an attempt to forge aphilosophical sy nthes is such as w e find in Philo and his forbears. Thecentre of Jesus' message is not a system of th oug ht b ut a n eschatologicalhope .Certainly, Jesus does not show the characteristics of the fortressrespo nse to diversity in religion an d cultu re. If any thing , he display s avery l iberal interpretat ion of his own rel igious tradit ion, whichinfuriated the fundamentalists and tradit ionalists anxious to retaintheir ow n structu res and influence. It is possible that this liberalattitude to particular aspects of Torah may be the fruit of his living inthe cu l tura l ly open Gal i l ean envi ronment and perhaps even ,indirectly, the fruit of value systems pr op ou nd ed in that setting. Ithink it very likely.On the other ha nd , an d for the main part, Jesus m ust be seen as firmlyrooted in the biblical tradition, not in a legalist fashion, but in acreative way which identified and expanded central biblical hopesand did so in a manner which st i l l upheld in some form theparticu larity of Israe l 's faith. The disciples w ere not left w ith theimpression that ei ther Torah, temple, land, or election were to beaband oned as such. On the whole, Jesus was much closer to the Judaismof Qumran and the Pharisees than he was to the strongly Hellenistic

9 Notably Gerd Theissen, Sociology of Early Palestinian Christianity(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), has argu ed for the influence of the C ynic-radical-itinerant-preacher-model on Jesus' own ministry and those of his group.


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252 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)strea m s w e detect in such as Philo. Yet it wo uld be equa lly fair to saythat it is precisely at the point where Jesus most differs from them thathis attitude has most in common with the popular reasonableness andhumanness characteristic of a response to cultural diversity such as hefaced in Galilee and as is illustrated by popular religio-philosophicalmovements in the Hellenistic world.

2. PAULWhen we consider Paul, we find one who operates generally withinthe same apocalyptic eschatological framework of thought as Jesus.10

In different terms he, too, looks towards God's promised eschatologicalin i t i a t ive . 1 1 Further, he identifies Jesus as the Messiah, the Christsent to Israel , whose death and resurrect ion inaugurated a newbe gin ning , alrea dy in the pres ent, throu gh the gift of the Spirit. Aright relationship with God is now offered to all peoples, Gentilesincluded, and this is to be entered and maintained by the commitmentof faith an d o bedience. The new pro m ise is universal and pu ts all on anequal footing.Paul has arrived at this un de rstan din g after a rugg ed journey. Thefirst obstacle which he and others faced was the question of what to dow ith Gentiles w ho respo nded to the good new s. Should they wa it to bebrought in at the eschaton on God's terms? 1 2 Should they enter bybecoming Jews and, as Jews, then join on equal terms with fellow Jews?Should they be received into the community of promise directlyw ithou t the interm ediate ste p of Judaism? Paul opted for the last ofthese alternatives, but he faced a barrage of criticism from ChristianJews com mitted to the other positions.This was an issue, to a large degree, of how scripture should beund erstoo d and ob eyed. W as Paul rightly hand ling the wo rd of God byusing the biblical message of divine compassion to overrule biblicalcom m and m ents about such m atters as circumcision in the light of a new10 In this overall estimate of Paul's apocalypticism I agree with, forexample, E. Ksemann, Commentary on Romans (London: SCM, 1980) and J. C.Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980).11 Sanders, in Jesus and Judaism, argues that where Paul talks about thekingdom of God he does so with a similar eschatological meaning to that giventhe words by Jesus.12 Note Ksemann's case that this was the kind of early response that has

left its trace in Matt 10:5f, 23. See "The Beginnings of Christian Theology" inhis New Testament Questions of Today (London: SCM, 1967).


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Loader: The A ban don m ent of Particularism 253situation, or was he, as the fundamentalists of his day argued, therebyab an do nin g the fund am enta ls of Israel's faith? The issue w as fiercelyfought.But the path was just as treacherous when it came to deciding whatsuch non-Jewish believers should do once they were members of thecom mun ity of promise. Again the outcome hu ng on how scripture shouldbe und erstoo d. On e migh t argu e that a new sacrifice had replaced oldsacrifices: but h ow could o ne ar gu e that food, in itself u nclean , wa s no wto be declared clean? And w hat abou t purity laws, which are rooted inassumptions about the holy and unholy of fundamental significance forlarge parts of the scriptural laws? The Acts of the Apostles m ention sadmission of Gentile Christians with the proviso of commitment to aNoachic torso of biblical cult law set out in the Apostolic Decree of Acts15:29, bu t Pa ul did no t eve n insist on tha t. Th e occasion al tacticalcompliance, for which h e argued on gro un ds of com passion (as in 1 Cor 8and 10 and in Romans 14), was hardly likely to convince those forwhom t inkering wi th God's word at any point was tantamount toapostasy. But, courageou sly, Paul held his line. He reached the pointof abandoning cult law and virtually declaring it only a tactical optionin the context of "w eake r" Jewish brothe rs and sisters. In do ing so hemodified Torah in a major way.

When it comes to the notion of election, we find Paul grappling withthe unde rlying issues in a slightly less conflictory m od e. The gosp elwas first to the Jews, then the Gentiles (Romans 1:16-17). But he stilldoe s not surre nde r the particularity of Israel. In Rom ans 9-11 one cannottell w ho will win u ntil the dy ing stag es of the final qua rte r. By amystery of God all Israel will be saved, and I believe he means by thata salvation which will entail acceptance of Israel's Christ.On th e issue of land it is difficult to m ake a judge m en t. I thin k itvery likely that the prophetic image of the Gentiles being brought toZion informs Paul 's own self-understanding as the messenger to theGentiles and the one who gathers a collection and brings it as a symbolof the harvest of the Gentiles to Jerusalem (see Romans 15:31).The most severe problem is, notably, Paul's hand ling of the Law as aw hole. Paul arg ue s that his gospel fulfils w ha t the scrip ture pro m isedand , while his argum ents v ary in cogency and consistency, I believe h emakes his case that the gospel is properly biblical. 13 This issue ofcontinuity is of fundam ental imp ortanc e. But, if the positive side is1 3 See the excellent tr eatm ent by E. Ks emann, J. C. Beker, J. A. Fitzmyer in:J. Reumann (ed.), Righteousness in the New Testament (Ph i l a de lph ia /Ne wYork: Fortr ess/P aulist , 1982).


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254 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)clear, the negative is not. W hy not keep all of G od 's w ord? If some isto be ab an do ne d, w hy w as it given in the first place? Paul tries a rang eof explanations, and scholarship is at the moment grappling afreshwith the question whether or not these explanations can be shown tohave any degree of coherence.1 4 At one level they cohere in theconviction that, because Christ is the answer, anything inconsistentwith Christ is not.1 5 That answer on its own, however, does not dealwith the cont inui ty-discont inui ty issue and smacks of dogmat icm yop ia. But this is not the place to explore the range of a rgu m entsPau l use s. As indicated abov e, I find Pa ul most convincing wh en hearg ue s that scripture inten ds to proclaim Go d's compassion for all. Ifind the arguments least convincing when Paul appears to suggest thatGod gave the Law primarily to drive people into a hopeless state ofbondage so that they would be ready for Christ the redeemer.It seems to me that much of the way Paul handles the issue of theLaw is to be un de rsto od in the context of a major shift in un de rstan din greligion which had been taking place through the influence ofHellenism, such as we begin to find already in Jesus and whichindirectly con tributes to a continuity between the two. For, wh en welook at some of Paul's arguments, we see him adopting the kind ofcritique of religion which Philo applied to other religions, only nowPaul goes on to apply it to Judaism itself, a step Philo would neverhave dared to have taken.Paul plays off circumcision of the heart against circumcision of theflesh (Rom ans 2). This is alrea dy an Old Testam ent image. But there,as in Old Testament statements about spiritual sacrifices, abandoningthe l iteral m eanin g was never intende d. Paul does intend such anaba nd onm ent, an d that is the difference. He argues the uselessness ofthe outer, the external. H e argue s the irrelevance of sacral categorisation of food. This is also consistent with Pa ul's arg um en t that,before G od , a neg ative sacral categorisation of peo ple is irrelevant. Italso explains why he can so easily appropriate traditions which speak

1 4 San ders, in particula r, has raised th e issue afresh. See. E. P. Sand ers,Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London: SCM, 1977), Paul, the Law and theJewish People (Lond on: SCM, 1983). See also the prov ocative analysis of H .Risnen, Paul and the Law (Phila delph ia: Fortress, 1986). Ther e has beenimportant discussion of these positions in J. D. G. Du nn, Jesus, Paul and the Law(London: SPCK, 1990), S. Westerholm, Israel's Law and the Church's Faith(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) and earlier in the Barrett Festschrift, M. D.Hooker and S. G. Wilson (eds.), Paul and Paulinism (London: mSPCK, 1982).1 5 Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, argues that this is the real basisof Paul's logic and that all else smacks of rationalisation, evident also in itsinconsistency.


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Loader: The Ab and onm ent of Particularism 255of community as temple, as did the Qumran community, but unlikethem, also abandon the cultic particularity of the temple.

Paul has thus abandoned the cultic Law and retained the notion ofelection in a modified form. His attitu de to Jerusalem and the landmay now be little mo re than eschatological symbolism on the on e h an dand pragmatics on the other - Jerusalem is the location of the motherchurch. This range of attitude s determines in turn his appro ach to theTorah and scripture generally. Un questionably the reason for thechange in attitude is Paul's belief in Jesus as Israel 's Messiah and hisunderstanding that the response to this eschatological good newssupersedes all previous categories of acceptance or non-acceptancebefore God. Along side this m ust also go some awar ene ss that Jesushimself affirmed a belonging, for those who did not belong by Law,simply by making a proclamation - without cultic or temple rite.Beside this major christological affirmation, which led to Paul'sreassessment of his heritage, there is also another influence whichenabled Paul to come to such radical conclusions about the Law,especially its par ticular cultic and pu rity pro vision s. It is his involveme nt in a major p arad igm shift in religious and cultural un der stand ing,from one which retained particularity in the form of localisation of thesacred in book, build ing, land and peop le, to one w hich reassessed theseelemen ts from a universalising perspec tive. This unive rsalising perspective was a major contribution to the influence of the pervadingHellenist culture of the time and its influence can probably already beseen in the stance of Jesus himself.We cannot here explore the detail of specific influence of Hellenisticw riters on Paul. W hat I have w anted to show is that there is animportant factor which consistently accompanies Paul's most radicaldecisions about Christ and the Law beside his faith in Jesus as theChrist. It is his taking over of a popu lar rationalistic attitude tow ardparticularism in religion, especially the cultic, which is evident inStoicism, and which enables him to make such statements as: nothing isclean or unclean of itself; outward forms like circumcision do not matter;the spirit matters, not the flesh o r the letter. These probab ly de rive,for him, not only from the sheer experience of plurality, but also fromspecific philosophical and rel igious responses to plurali ty whichsought a basis for universalism and which relativised the particular.This is not to argue that Jesus or Paul derived their messagesprimarily from Hellenistic culture or Hellenistic culture aside from itsJewish com pon ent. I see both firmly rooted in Juda ism and i tstraditions. But I wo uld a rgue that, to a greater degre e than is usually


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256 Pacifica 4 (October 1991)recogn ised, both also ha ve bee n influenced by the Hellenistic context inw hich th ey lived : Pa ul, very significantly; Jesus, less so. This Hellenistic influence enables us to recognise a significant continuity betweenJesus and Paul in their tendency toward significant abandonment ofsacral part iculari ty.It is important to maintain the balance between part iculari ty anduniversality if w e are not to surre nde r to a ghetto-men tality on the onehan d or syncretism on the other. Particularism p ande rs to our desire topossess the divine: in a book, in a sacrament, in an order, in a comm unity . O n the other han d, because every site is sacred w e can respectthe integri ty of our different claims without feeling threatened.Without that at t i tude our universalism is assimilat ionist - and atw orst imp erial ist and oppre ssive . Sadly, our Au stral ian historyteaches us these truths.

In a world in which such issues do not go away, both in the churchand in religion and society generally, I am thankful that the worlds ofJesus and Paul, including their mix of Hellenism and Judaism, havebee n a context for such enor m ou s religious creativity. Such revelationhas in part made it possible for us at the ends of the earth to hear thewo rd of God.

Documents

1991 - William Loader - Hellenism and the Abandonment of Particularism in Jesus and Paul