Paul and Jesus

This allegory encapsulates the implications of Paul’s way of thinking, which are monumental. What he does here he does on a grander scale with the entire Torah, and with the central tenets of Judaism as a whole—moving everything from literal to allegorical, from earth to heaven. Israel is no longer the physical nation; rather, the “true Israelites” are those who are “in Christ,” having been “circumcised” in heart (Galatians 6:16; Philippians 3:3). The honored messianic Davidic bloodline means nothing, as God creates many brothers of the Messiah who will reign as “kings” with him spiritually (Romans 8:17; 1 Corinthians 4:8; 6:2–3). The kingdom of God is no longer on earth but God’s real “commonwealth” is in heaven (Philippians 3:20). Jerusalem is no longer the city blessed and chosen by God. God has cursed Jerusalem and its Jewish inhabitants; now the “true” Jerusalem is in heaven (Galatians 4:25–26). Those who were once blessed by keeping all the commandments of the Torah are now under a curse, while those who follow the “Torah of Christ” are blessed (Galatians 3:10; 6:2). All human relations, from the sexual to the social and economic, are losing importance as the “form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). Paul’s assertion that God does not care for animals, even the lowly laboring ox, represents an entire world of Torah overthrown in the interest of the world to come. In terms of its full implications it might be the most telling sentence we have from Paul. It implies that Paul’s new “Torah of Christ” has cut itself off from any real stake in the transformation of this world into the kingdom of God, where the will of God is done on earth as in heaven. Given these perspectives on the Torah, along with their implications for Judaism more generally, it should not surprise us that Paul ended up in a bitter struggle with Peter, James, and the original apostles, who claimed to faithfully carry on the message of Jesus. We have only Paul’s side of that conflict, and his decisive break with Jerusalem is glossed over in Acts, but there is enough evidence still to piece together the story.

CHAPTER NINE

THE “BATTLE OF THE

APOSTLES”

There is good evidence that the two great apostles of Christianity, Peter and Paul, ended up bitter rivals. They seem so inseparably tied together in later Christian history and tradition that the idea of a severe quarrel between them seems inconceivable.

The first time I stood in St. Peter’s Square in Rome and approached the steps leading up to St. Peter’s Basilica, I was struck by the twin colossal statues of Peter on the left and Paul on the right. Both hold scrolls in their left hands but Peter holds a golden key in his right hand, symbolizing his authority as head of the Church, and Paul holds a sword, representing the “Word of God.”

In the center of the square, certainly more imposing, is an ancient Egyptian solar obelisk, complete with sun dial and zodiac signs, towering a hundred feet. It was once inscribed to the “Divine Augustus” but now the inscription reads: “Christus Vincit, Christus Regnat, Christus Imperat”—Christ Conquers, Christ Reigns, Christ Rules. It is topped with a bronze cross, said to contain a fragment of Jesus’ original wooden cross. The emperor Caligula brought the original obelisk to Rome in A.D. 37 from Heliopolis, Egypt, to stand in the Circus Maximus. It was a silent witness to the martyrdom of Peter and Paul and other Christians during the reign of Nero. Pope Sixtus V moved it to St. Peter’s in 1585 as testimony to the triumph of the Christian Church over the worldly power of Rome, and by extension over the entire ancient world. Surrounding the square are 140 statues of saints atop the massive oval colonnades. But Peter and Paul, standing together as the patron saints of Christianity, hold center place, leading into the basilica, the world center of Roman Catholic Christianity.¹

All over Rome it is the same—Peter on the left, Paul on the right, standing watch over the entrance to the bridge San Angelo crossing the Tiber River, or leading up to the central altar of the Basilica San Paolo, where Paul’s tomb is located. At the Basilica of St. John Lateran, there are relics from both Peter’s and Paul’s heads—skull bones—kept inside statues in the canopy high over the altar. In countless cathedrals and churches around the world, the pair invariably and inseparably appear, whether at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Philadelphia, or the famed Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, where the Russian emperors and empresses are buried.

This legendary heroic pairing hangs on a surprisingly slim historical thread. The earliest reference dates to the early second century A.D. in a letter traditionally ascribed to Clement, an early bishop of Rome: