Historicity of the Sacred Books

Exegetical problems around historicity. Special study of the writings of Luke.

Lecture delivered in the conference hall of the Religious Seminary “Mary, Mother of the Incarnate Word”, on the occasion of the Biblical Conference “Bible and Hermeneutics”. San Rafael, September 28, 1998

I – Christian faith and history.

No religion, outside of Judeo-Christianity, considers God’s exchange with man as inserted in the annals of time. It is almost a commonplace to affirm that the Hebrews were the first to oppose a cyclical conception of time with a linear one; those also who valued history as the Epiphany of God.

The fact is notorious when, in the tightest synthesis of our believing life, the “Symbol of Faith”, we find the name of Poncio Pilato, as a factor capable of dating the very core of our redemption.

The differentiation of historical science and its method with respect to the analysis processes of the exact sciences has also been an acquisition of the most recent reflections.

It does not go out in search of chemically pure events, without the subjective appreciation of witnesses and historians intervening in its approach. That kind of objectivity does not match the material being studied. To be objective with human events it is necessary to take into account the subjective.

Now, biblical history is all soaked in enthusiasm kerygmatic, so that it is at the antipodes of a historical science, practiced sine ira et studio, according to the slogan of Tácito. The authors of the Sacred Scripture, the evangelists, do not treat the message of which they are bearers with indifference, but with the burning zeal of preaching even from the rooftops (cf. Lc 12, 3).

However, precisely so that the faith they ask for is not mere credulity, from Jesus to the apostles, they offered guarantees, controls, criteria to discern the truth from deceptions, just as the prophets of Yahweh also did, in order to differentiate themselves from the deceivers: “I will deliver them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar… for having spoken lies in my name, without my commanding them.” (Jr 29,21.23).

For this reason, although the truth of the Word of God is not limited to an adaequatio intellectus cum re, that aspect, minimal perhaps, but basic for all science, is not absent from Sacred Scripture either. For this reason, although Dei Verbum refined the analysis, so that the “truth of the Bible” cannot be asked for information on any matter (even if it is the word of the omniscient God), but rather on “the truth that looks to our salvation”, it is necessary, however, – as P. Grelot warns – “to keep in mind that reflection on the meaning of history always presupposes the reality of the facts about which it deals.”

II – Historicity in Dei Verbum.

What we have been reviewing, almost from the outset, was the object of the teaching of the dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, 2: “This plan of revelation is carried out with words and gestures intrinsically connected to each other, so that the works carried out by God in the history of salvation manifest and confirm the doctrine…”.

But, with notable emphasis, the historicity of the Gospels stands out as an inalienable doctrine of the Church (DV 19). The Card. A. Bea fairly comments: “When one knows all the ruins that accumulate on this point under the influence of the Historia de las Formas and particularly of the school called the demythization of the Gospels, the solemnity of the statement is explained. Ex expresses the serious concern of the Council in the presence of the dangers that have nothing imaginary and that threaten the faith of so many Christians and not only Catholics.”

The commitment of the ecclesial magisterium to confront the issue was such that the conciliar dialogues were preceded by an Instruction from the Pontificia Comisión Bíblica on the subject, whose main contributions were assumed by DV 19.

During the same discussions in the conciliar hall, the problem seemed so serious to Paul VI that he sent the Fathers, in reference to this matter, the third of his proposals for amendment to the text.

Tracing the history of the text’s vicissitudes, from its first outline, X. León-Dufour criticizes a certain meticulousness of the primitive draft. “In fact, after having defended the objective truth en masse, he enumerates certain points that he considers particularly delicate: the stories of infancy, the signs and miracles of the Redeemer, his marvelous resurrection, his glorious ascension. Now, can the stories of the resurrection and the miracles of Jesus be treated in the same way? Can it be declared that faith is involved at the same level in all the details of the stories of infancy, for example, the virginal conception and the coming of the magi? This surely does not touch the faith immediately, nor does the flight to Egypt. Does not such a bulk enumeration come from a reflex of fear that, if it is understandable on the part of those who are informed about the excesses to which certain vulgarizers indulge and not about the exegetical methods, is not less dangerous for the adequate expression of the truth?… Specifically, if security is given about the value of the evangelical tradition, the work of discernment of the historical genres is not finished. The exegete can undertake it with a free spirit, convinced that he no longer has to “perform feats of skill in order to escape a whole network of prohibitions that for so long has made scriptural work difficult and the profession of a biblical scholar dangerous.”

III – The post-conciliar evolution.

We think that this “free spirit” sponsored by exegetes, in more than one case has become “libertine” and… precisely in the specific points on which the first outline of our DV expressed its concerns.

Thus X. León-Dufour himself, who pointed out how the resurrection was not of equal importance to the infancy gospels, left much to be desired with a presentation of the resurrection of the Lord, in which the historicity of the event remained quite nebulous.

One of the points that were most shaken in post-conciliar exegesis has been precisely the lack of care with which the historicity of the sacred books, including those of the New Testament, is handled.

This is the alarm that the theologian P. Toinet sounded: “If the “historical” path, as the exegete who works on archaeological documents wishes to take it, is not the only one, nor the main one that leads to an authentic knowledge of Jesus, its importance should not be unknown within the believing community, especially at a time when, for all sorts of reasons, the dominant mood has become suspicious (while always being naive) in matters of historical verification.”

The Card. J. Ratzinger, in his assessment of the state of post-conciliar biblical science, confirmed that “the Second Vatican Council certainly did not create this state of affairs, but neither was it able to prevent it.” And regarding our specific point he notes: “He (Bultmann) is convinced that the events, as described in the Bible, cannot have happened, and he finds methods that should show how they would have actually happened. At this level, modern exegesis carries with it a “reductio historiae in philosophiam”: history is once again led into philosophy and through philosophy.”

It is very common in current exegetical literature to avoid historical difficulties, attributing to the author’s “theology” narratives that, however, are presented by him as truly occurring. P. I. De la Potterie warned against these positions when, after having investigated the characteristics of presentation provided by each evangelist, when transmitting the temptations of Christ in the desert, he continued: “But now, we must propose the problem of historicity, which, especially in these times, it is not permissible for us to ignore, lest we give support to those who say that the Redaktionsgeschichte is indeed a beautiful method, but at the same time a evasive. Some Protestants want to consider the very facts “ipsissima verba” of Jesus; there is a danger that Catholics, while dwelling on theology and hagiographic interpretation, will neglect the facts.

In fact, on the other hand, more than one exegete behaves with such ease and carelessness in the face of the real roots of biblical events, that it arouses the astonishment of experts in secular historical science. Thus, for example, “E. Meyer, historian of antiquity – after all, a truly serious scholar in his investigations – in the face of exegesis that meticulously studied the Bible like no other text, slipped from admiration to concern: What would be left of the ancient texts, if an antiquarian subjected the documents themselves to the corrosive analysis used for the Sacred Scripture?”

This dispensable style also draws the attention of theologians or thinkers, who in no way can we call prudes. Take for example these reflections by J. L. Martín Descalzo: “For many centuries the most popular image of Pilate was the one inspired by the evangelical stories, lowering the importance of the stories of Josephus and Philo, which were considered biased like any painting of the invader made by the subjugated. But, in recent decades, the tables have turned: the infallibility that was attributed to the evangelical stories seems to have been transferred to the Jewish historians, while – even among Christian exegetes – it seems fashionable to distrust the historicity of canonical texts.

In this sense, the experience of R. Laurentin, a biblical scholar and expert in Mariology, is instructive. In a recent publication he confesses the following: “I have spent half a century studying the Gospels of infancy (Mt 1-2 and Lc 1-2, and the rest). I have always glimpsed the richness of these Gospels, nourished by the entire Old Testament, which they update in a wonderful way, and inspiring the joy of Christmas for two thousand years.

“And yet, I continued to be seduced by the iconoclastic cultural attitude of the environment, an attitude coming from liberal rationalism: these first chapters were late legends, theologoumena, that is, fictional stories fabricated to express theological ideas dear to believers, it was repeated.

“My first works, which manifested the biblical richness of these Gospels, achieved wide esteem in the exegetical world on an ecumenical scale. I characterized these Gospels as Midrashim. From this it was inferred that I considered them to be fables, which was my asset as a “progressive.” In fact, I did not dare to raise the problem of historicity, which was widely questioned. reasons to convince me: his historian’s prologue, his desire to rely on “eyewitnesses” (1,3), his transparent references to these witnesses, etc. But I distanced myself from Matthew… It was in 1980 when I dared to tackle the specifically historical study of these Gospels. With him the harmful doubts that obscured my penetration of the text were dispelled, uprooting it… This return to evidence has been a detriment to my reputation. advise against.”

IV – The specific case of Luke, “accurately narrated” (Lc 1,3).

The paragraph of DV 19, mentioned above, confirms “without hesitation the historicity” of the four Gospels, precisely reproducing words from the prologue of the Acts of the Apostles: “They faithfully communicate what Jesus, the Son of God, living among men, really did and taught for their salvation, until the day he was taken up into heaven (cf. Acts 1:1-2).”

Now, precisely about the author who expressly and according to his declared intention comes closest to the concerns of professional historians (as – as we saw – noted by R. Laurentin and many others), a whirlwind of doubts has recently arisen, which present him as tendentious and who, for the same reason, cannot be presented as reliable.

The two prologues (Lc 1,1-4; Heb 1,1-3) are a declaration of intention, according to which the author aspires to write a “narrative” (diegesis) in order. Its goal, then, can well be characterized as the exercise of history according to the patterns of time. Which follows from the approach with which Luke conceived his task.

First of all there is an emphasis on accuracy (akribós: Lc 1,3). Luke already qualifies the knowledge received by Theophilus as endowed with solidity (asfáleia: ibid., v.4). Furthermore, with its orderly exposition, it longs to offer new confirmation of that certainty.

This position has been criticized by U. Luck. The true guarantee would not come from the industry and investigations of Luke himself, nor from the human transmission of the kerygma, nor even from “the teaching of the apostles” (Heb 2:42), but from the Spirit of God, presented as an active principle already at the very inauguration of Jesus’ earthly ministry (Lc 4,1.14) and as a force that accredits the Christological proclamation in the book of Acts (cf. He 2,14-21).

We could limit this to, together with I.H. Marshall: “This thesis may be held to be correct in what it affirms, but erroneous in what it denies. It ignores the use of such words as “eyewitnesses,” “accuracy,” “orderly,” and (in Heb 1:3) “many proofs,” all of which point to a writer for whom correct history was a matter of importance.” Indeed, an indoctrination, if it is not predominantly historical in nature, is based on universally valid and more or less plausible reasoning, it does not refer to testimonies; and the “many evidence” does not indicate syllogisms or interconnections of principles and consequences, but rather points to the fact that he was seen “alive” in an obvious way, “appearing to them for forty days.”

It is not possible, then, to hide behind Luke’s “theology” the unavoidable emphasis that he (like the other evangelists, but even more systematically) has placed on the most careful historical information possible. This is how only under the pen of the third evangelist do we find synchronisms with well-known figures in contemporary world history (Lc 2,1-2; 3,1-2; Heb 11,28; 18,2.12).

On this point, we fully subscribe to the observation of J. A. Fitzmyer: “It is not enough to say: “That is purely Lucan”, implying that it is a reality that is foreign to history, or that it is biased from theological point of view, or even that it responds to some preconceived schemes and structures… The modern commentator has to respond to the questions that may be posed to today’s reader; and one of the most common is to know to what extent certain details of the Lucan narrative are truly historical or simply reproduce data of tradition.”

Therefore, taking into account the difference with which a student of the 20th century approaches history. XIX, the ancient chroniclers and an “evangelist”, it is no less evident that they have always known how to distinguish “reality” from the annals, and the “fantasies” from the poets. “It was not by following artificial fables that we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but as those who have been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2Pe 1:16).

In this way, and accepting once again the points of view of J. A. Fitzmyer, we must not lose sight of the fact that “a writer of the second century, Lucian of Samosata, composed a short treatise on the rules for writing history (The True History). One of the criteria he proposes may surprise more than one modern reader. “The only task of the historian is to relate the events as they happened (hos eprachthe eipein, n.39)”; “this… is the characteristic of history: only the truth must be worshiped…” Cf. K. Kilburn (LCL 6, Cambridge Ma. 1949). Lucian was almost a contemporary and even a countryman of Luke. However, his norms of historiography are not far from those attributed to the famous historian L. von Ranke, who affirms that history must reproduce the past “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist”, as it really is. happened.”

This type of veracity seems to be, indeed, one of the main objectives of Luke, who “decidedly affirms that “all this did not happen in a corner” (Heb 26:26). On the other hand, the historical perspective adopted – and which encompasses both parts of his work, in a way that has no parallel in the entire New Testament – is precisely the vehicle of his presentation of Christianity as a development or as a perfectly logical and legitimate continuation of Judaism and, specifically, of the Pharisaic tendency. (Heb 23,6; 24,21) N. A. Dahl states that Luke’s purpose was “to write a continuation of the biblical story” (The purpose of Luke – Acts, p. 88).

V – Current distrust of Lucan data about Paul.

Given that Luke proposes his historical-theological vision in two installments (Gospel-Acts), it is also noted that the skepticism that characterizes the most radical sectors of Lucan research is much more severe with the second part of his work.

Although, for the reports of the first ecclesial expansion we do not have sources other than the data of Luke himself (something that does not happen with his evangelical material, which facilitates the comparative enterprise of the historian with the other synoptics and John), despite everything there are the sporadic news that Paul has transmitted to us in his epistolary.

Now, precisely here, starting in the 1950s, is where, on the Protestant side as well, the criticism has sharpened, presenting Luke as a traitor who has distorted both the personality and the doctrines of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. For many there would be incompatibility between the data provided by the main interested party, Paul, and the traces that the Lucanian Acts provide us with.

In our days many Catholics have also aligned themselves with these perspectives.

Since it is impossible to address all the points and far from any claim to exhaustiveness, we will review some of the Paul-Acts relationships that seem important to us.

A) Overview: reliability of Luke the historian

“Faced with the Acts of the Apostles,” advises Ph. Rolland, “the modern reader must guard against two excesses. The first would be to approach the text naively, as a biography that presents the sequence of events in a strictly chronological order and that gives an account of the facts in a totally impartial manner. The inverse excess consists of casting doubt a priori on the probity of the editor of the Acts.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the ancient historian is always a committed man, who wants to instruct his readers with the ideas that are dear to him. It is incontestable that, for example, Flavius ​​Josephus seeks to glorify his people and show their bravery in the face of Roman power. But this apologetic intention forces him to great rigor: we will not reproach him for having omitted some less than glorious events, but he will not be allowed to invent facts to serve only his demonstration. In the same way, Luke does not intend to say everything, far from it; but he would not enjoy any credit if the facts he selects were simply the fruit of a fertile imagination.

In the area of ​​chronology, the ancient historian does not have the same absolute reference points as we do. He can establish various synchronisms (Lc 3,1-2), but he often has to use very imprecise expressions: “In those days” (Heb 1,15; 6,1; 11,27), “after a fairly long time” (Heb 9,23), “after a certain time” (Heb 15,36).

On the other hand, the second book of Luke organizes the story in a very schematic way: Jerusalem, first, then its periphery, to the ends of the earth (Heb 1:8). Such systematization forces important omissions. For example, even though some Romans were listeners of the Pentecost discourse (Heb 2:10), Luke does not tell the story of the founding of the Church of Roma and we must wait until the end of his story, for the announcement of the Gospel in the capital of the pagan world to be described (Heb 28:14ff.). A modern historian would not allow such a selection of information, but it is not contrary to the canons of Antiquity.

However, this does not imply that the ancient historian can allow himself to slip imaginary facts into his story to serve the cause he wants to defend. Its readers are no less deprived of a critical spirit than we are. As far as the Acts are concerned, the obligation to stick to the events that actually occurred is all the more urgent since the recipients come from an environment firmly attached to the memory of the Apostles. No matter how much the last writing of the Acts is placed around 64, as Harnack did in his latest works, or even in the 70s and 80s, as most recent biblical scholars do, and even in 90, according to the opinion of Boismard and Lamouille, it cannot be denied that the readers for whom the book is intended know, directly or indirectly, the protagonists of the story. Peter and Paul did not die before 64, and there are still numerous Christians, even in 90, who have known them personally. Only 26 years separate them from the beginning of the Neronian persecution.

If it is accepted that Paul’s missionary journeys began around 45, we must remember that some of his disciples from Cyprus, Pisidia, Lycaonia, who were 20 years old at that time, are no more than 65 in 90. With even greater reason, the Christians of Macedonia and Achaia keep, at the end of the first century, the memory of the foundation of their communities. Luke cannot mention the name of Eutyches (Heb 20:9), who fell from the third floor of a house in Troas, if this character is unknown in this city in 90, when his contemporaries were not more than 50 years old.

It was a cliché among ancient historians to use sarcasm against those who spoke of distant places without having set foot outside their native region.

From this it follows that the author of Acts, by using “we” in certain sections of his story, claims before his readers the note of a serious historian. He cannot be accused of having undertaken the task in a deceitful manner. He would have completely disqualified himself and his book would have had no audience at all, if the Christians of the first century had had good reasons to think that they were dealing with a simple literary artifice with no real foundation. The author of Acts is not a “ridiculous character,” and it is abusive to deny that he was a companion of Paul; Even though his theological thought is not exactly identical to that of the Apostle, the fact should not be doubted, since a collaborator is not expected to be a simple repeater, renouncing his personal ideas.

Positively, the second volume of Luke is notable for its remarkable knowledge of the administrative organization of the cities visited by Paul; Luke knows that Cyprus is governed by a proconsul (Heb 13:7), which was, therefore, a senatorial province, without the presence of military powers.

The inscriptions that have been discovered in Philippi, Thessalonica, etc., have never refuted Luke. Many details of his account are confirmed by Flavius ​​Josephus; for example, the vanity of Herod Agrippa I°, who allowed himself to be hailed as a god (Heb 12:22).

It has been said that the numerous speeches that the author of Acts puts in the mouths of Peter, Stephen, Paul, etc. They all have the same style as Luke and, for this reason, have been made and invented by him. However, it is noteworthy how the vocabulary of these oratory pieces is close to Peter’s letters, when he is the one speaking, or to Paul’s, if his harangue is transmitted.

In particular, Miletus’s speech, which Luke claims to have heard with his own ears, contains few Lucan terms, but an average of four expressions familiar to Paul in each verse. Therefore, it is very true that no speech reproduces the literality of the words spoken. But we know from Thucydides that ancient historians, when composing their speeches, took it very seriously to “stick as closely as possible to the words actually spoken.” Luke remained strictly faithful to this rule and it is difficult to imagine that he could have done so by gleaning from the letters of Peter and Paul words that should be put in the mouths of each of them, since, when Luke wrote, collections of Pauline or Petrine letters were not yet known.

Studies on the sources of the Acts should not neglect the circumstance, according to which, the author of the story claims to have carried out his Roman stay in the company of Paul (Heb 28:16), at a time when, according to all likelihood, Peter was also there. For the rest, he points out the names of two other informants: “Philip the evangelist”, one of the seven (Heb 21,8) and, “Menasson of Cyprus”, disciple of the early days (Heb 21,16). It is not for nothing that he claims to have “been carefully informed starting from the origins” (Lc 1,3).

For this reason, even though “the theses” that Luke insists on demonstrating with his second work are evident, he is not so disloyal to the truth that he sacrifices the facts, to force them into the “Procrustean bed” of his predetermined scheme.

Thus, for example, it is incontestable that he wants to give a united image of the first Church. This does not contradict Paul, who insists on affirming his communion with the Apostles (1Cor 15:11; Gal 2:9). But Luke does not let his project become “ideology”, in which reality would have to be packaged no matter what.

He has all the more merit, since, having attempted to show the aforementioned unitary vision, he no less makes us witness the individualistic actions of Ananias and Sapphira (5,1-11), the “murmurations” of the Hellenists against the Hebrews in Jerusalem (ibid., 6, l), the reluctance of the Jerusalem community in welcoming Paul, after his entry into the Church (9,26), the difficulties encountered by Peter before the circumcised after the baptism of Cornelius (11:2), the liveliness of the discussions in the Jerusalem assembly (15:7), the altercation between Paul and Barnabas regarding Mark (15:37-40), the slander of which Paul was subjected by those around James (21:20-21).

Without Luke we would completely ignore the hesitations of the early Church regarding Christology: it has taken great care to place only in Paul’s mouth (despite Mc 15,39) the title “Son of God” (Heb 9,20; cf. Gal 1,15-16). In the very first kerygma he places a way of expression, which the later adoptionist heretics would precisely use: “God has made him (the resurrected Jesus) Lord and Messiah” (Heb 1:36).

Without it we would have no idea of ​​Peter’s attachment (despite Mc 7,18-19) to the particular rules of the Jewish people (Heb 10,14; 10,28). All these archaisms can only come from absolutely certain information, transmitted with great rigor.

For these and many other reasons Ph. Rolland may well conclude: “Modern skepticism as to the historical value of the Acts is not justified.”

B) Encounter with Christ according to Luke and Paul.

1) General overview.

We must adhere to the accurate vision of L. Cerfaux: before Paul “from the beginning we must take sides, if we want to penetrate this original personality: either trust in what the Apostle has perceived of God in his conscience and represent his psychology as he himself understood it; or, doubting the possibility of a contact between man and God, consider Paul, looking for human motives for a life that he claims not to have had; autobiography is then replaced by personal hypotheses. We We’ll take the first game.”

G. Bornkamm leans towards these hypotheses (and moreover, of a rationalist nature, resolving everything on a purely introspective level of Paul himself): “If we look back, the question is imposed on us in an all-too-evident way, if possible, about what Paul’s change of life raised and what it resolved. This question can only be answered very briefly in a positive way by arguing that, following the discussions held in Damascus with the Hellenistic Christians, who at the beginning had hated and persecuted, it suddenly became clear to the apostle who the Jesus he had until then considered as the destroyer of the sacred principles of the Jewish faith really was, and what his mission and his death meant for him and for the world. We have the right to assume that this question, raised by the faith and testimony of the disciples, weighed on him and worked inside him. It is true that on this point he himself does not say a word and, on the contrary, he categorically assures that the change was. operated, not by a slow process of maturation, but solely by virtue of the free and sovereign action of God.”

For the German exegete, not even Paul himself is decisive here, since his reconstruction substitutes the solemn declarations of the Apostle: “I was reached by Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:12). “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1Cor 9,1).

Paragraphs later he will confess with total casualness: “We do not need to justify ourselves further here for having adhered to Paul’s own statements in the presentation of his conversion and vocation, and for having postponed the descriptions of the event in Damascus contained in the Acts of the Apostles.”

Bornkamm himself (as we have just read) had the honesty to warn that about the psychological reconstruction he proposed, Paul “does not say a word.” If he then calls such disquisitions “statements of Paul himself,” we will not be surprised if he completely discredits Luke.

Consequently… let us continue to trust in Luke, much closer to Paul than the current and erudite reconstructions, which go so far as to correct Paul’s authentic confessions.

It is completely implausible that the supernatural event, which Luke transmits to us three times, was only the product of his fertile fantasy. Much more so is Bornkamm’s dry reconstruction, “within the framework of pure reason.”

This hypercritical pre-understanding, as far as Acts is concerned, as we already said in passing, has also caught on in the Catholic field, with many exegetes dedicating themselves to collecting discrepancies between the news that the Pauline epistolary gives about its history and the data on it from the point of view of Luke.

A certain unilateralism can also be observed among these commentators, specialized in accumulating incompatibilities, without paying attention to the explanations offered by other scholars.

With the help of the literature at our disposal, we will follow the course of S. Lyonnet, who presents himself as “a Catholic exegete, concerned with safeguarding the historicity of the Acts.”

2) Persecutor of the Church.

According to Luke, Saul enters the scene of history as a furious opponent and persecutor of the nascent Church (Heb 7:59-60). “Dragging men and women to prison” (8.3); “carrying them in chains” (22,4); “voting favorably when they were sentenced to death” (26:10).

It is often objected to this picture that, although Paul remembers in his letters his past as an adversary of Christians, he does not go into such gruesome details. So much so that he goes so far as to say that “the churches of Judea… did not know me personally. They only heard it said: “He who once persecuted us now announces the faith that he previously sought to destroy”” (Gal 1:21-23).

Many conclude that Paul’s presence at the martyrdom of Stephen (only known from Lucan information) must be questioned and that, in fact, he was a persecutor only in Damascus.

To this we would have to respond that Paul himself, verses earlier, recalled a visit of his to Peter (Gal 1:18). Now, it cannot be assumed that on that occasion he hid only with Kefas and that no other Christian saw him in the community. Furthermore, taking into account the previous context of Gálatas and the considerations in note 47, it is not seen why the notification of “ignorance” of Paul by the Jewish communities should be extended to all his activity, before and after his encounter with Christ. The statement stands if we restrict it only to the subsequent apostolate. Something, moreover, that can be harmonized with the Lucan information about the objections of the Jerusalemite Christians, which dealt only with the change that Paul had undergone with respect to themselves: “When he arrived in Jerusalem, he wanted to join the disciples, but they all feared him, not believing that he was a disciple” (Heb 9:26).

L. H. Rivas’s attention is drawn to the words of Heb 26:10: “When they were condemned to death, I voted in favor (we add: verbatim: «I brought my pebble»)”. This vote approving a death sentence “seems to indicate – according to the aforementioned author – that Saul belonged to the Sanhedrin, something that is not attested anywhere else and is never alluded to in the letters. If he had been a member of this Council, it is not clear why Paul has kept silent about it when describing his life as a Jew and enumerating everything that he had had as glory: “circumcised on the eighth day, of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew, a son of Hebrews, in regard to the law, a Pharisee, by the ardor of my zeal, a persecutor of the Church;

It could be observed that Paul, in his letters, does not always offer a detailed list of all the events of his life. Thus, for example, in Gal 1-2, where he describes his wanderings between Damascus and Jerusalem, he remains silent that he was persecuted in the first town, to the point that, in order to flee, he had to be lowered in a basket from the walls. Something that is reported not only by Heb 9:23, but also by Paul himself in 2Cor 11,32-33.

Furthermore, in a famous list of titles that he has, in order to emulate his detractors, envious Judaizers, he not only omits that he had been a member of the Sanhedrin, but also what he stated categorically in Philippians: his circumcision on the eighth day and his belonging to the Pharisees: “Are they Hebrews? Me too. Are they Israelites? Me too. Are they descendants of Abraham? Me too” (2Cor 11, 22).

Furthermore, the same retrospective vision of his Jewish life, outlined in Ga 1,13-14, which is what we are immediately comparing with the Lucan accounts on the matter (Heb 9,1-28; 22,1-21; 26,2-20), does not go into detail in the details in which Phil 3,5-6 goes.

On the other hand, it would be necessary to see if “voting in favor”, according to Heb 26:10, really means: “participating in a scrutiny by the Sanhedrin.” For now, M. Zerwick presents this interpretation under a question mark.

In fact, the turn must be interpreted in the light of the parallel places, which point towards a figurative meaning for Heb 26:10: Heb 7:60: “Saul approved of his death”; Heb 22:20: “When the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I was present and rejoiced and kept the clothes of those who killed him.” For this reason, T. Ballarini, explaining the passage of He in question, clarifies: “Vow… does not seem to be understood as the opinion expressed in a Council that judges and decides the sentence of death; it is difficult to admit it, given the young age of Saul in those times. It is rather a lively way of expressing moral participation and consent with everything that was happening.”

Rivas continues to harvest historical implausibilities in Luke, pointing out as improbable the information that Saul “extended his persecution to foreign cities (26,11) and also that the High Priest granted him letters of recommendation addressed to the synagogues of Damascus (Heb 9,1-2; 22,5; 26,12) in order to be able to “take bound to Jerusalem” all the followers of Christ that he found in that city. It does not seem that it can be proven with valid arguments that these “letters of recommendation”… could have sufficient force to transfer Jews from one Roman province to another as prisoners, especially for strictly religious reasons.

For one thing, one could doubt that “tas exo póleis” in 26:11 must necessarily be translated by “foreign cities.” In reality, “exo”, the times it appears in Acts, does not necessarily indicate a distance, but only: “outside of”. Thus, 7:58: “Taking him out of the city (exo tes póleos) they stoned him.” 14:19: “They dragged him out of the city.” 21, 5: “They accompanied him out of the city.” So the request for letters of recommendation could well be translated: “I pursued them to the cities outside (of Jerusalem – it is understood -).”

Which would fit even better in the hypothesis (which is not without foundation) that “Damascus” was not the capital of Syria, but the town next to the Dead Sea, where a settlement of Essene communities had been founded, which called themselves Damascus.

3) The encounter with the risen Christ.

Some go so far as to think that Luke is confusing himself as he re-presents the fact of Paul’s conversion. Thus, J. Roloff: “In general it can be said that the image we are given here of Paul, as a persecutor of Christianity, surpasses in virulence not only the historical reality but even the very presentation that Luke himself has made of that figure in previous stories.”

Along the same lines, Rivas (already preceded by many) highlights discrepancies between Luke’s three accounts: in 9:7 Paul’s companions hear the voice without seeing anything; In 22.9 they see the light, but hear nothing. That is to say: regarding the same event, in one story they hear but do not see and in another, however, they see but do not hear.

G. Ricciotti’s explanation still seems valid to us: “The verb hear has a double meaning in Greek: the general one of perceiving a material sound of words or things (hear) and the more specific one of grasping the meaning of the perceived words (understand); today it can be said that one has heard a speaker, but that one has not understood him; that one has heard someone calling, but without understanding who could call. Now, precisely comparing the two stories, it turns out (especially in the Greek text, with the particles mén… dé, disjunctive) that we wanted to contrast the visual and auditory perceptions of Paul’s companions with those of Paul himself; the former saw the glare, but did not discover any new character, while Paul saw the glare and Jesus; thus, the former hear the arcane voice, but do not understand the words, while Paul hears and understands. The care with which both stories want to reveal the part that corresponded to Paul’s companions in the event is inspired by. the desire to present them as incomplete, but impartial, witnesses to the same event”.

The NT offers an episode where something similar happens. The powerful voice of the Father responds to Jesus: “I have glorified him and I will glorify him” (Jn 12,28ff). The bystanders think that an angel has spoken to him or that there was thunder.

Rivas also contrasts 9:4, where only Paul is shown fallen to the ground, while the rest remain standing (v.7) with 26:14, where the entire group collapses.

For now, the verb “eistekeisan” (9,7) does not necessarily have to mean: “they remained standing.” Thus T. Ballarini translates: “those who were traveling with him stopped (s’erano arrestati).”

G. Ricciotti also admits this, although he prefers another version and exegesis, which, despite everything, can be well interpreted, without the need to rush into a contradiction in the data provided by Luke himself. Explies: “Eistekeisan can also be translated as simply they had been left (stunned, etc.); but if you want to maintain the idea of ​​the erect position, you have to imagine a second moment of the scene, since in the first they had all fallen to the ground (26,14). After the first astonishment the others got up, while Saul had serious reasons to continue on the ground.”

Rivas warns that, not being his objective to stop at this point, for the intention of his work “it is enough to note that the data that appear in the three accounts of Paul’s conversion cannot be taken for a biography without first being subjected to careful criticism.”

OK! As long as the sieve does not necessarily result in a total repudiation of the historical value of Lucan data. A “careful critique” can also find ways of solving apparent rough edges. We think that it is not enough to urge oppositions, without taking into account or discussing the clarification essays offered by other interpreters.

In a new step of his analysis, Rivas continues to find discrepancies, not only with Gálatas, but also within the narratives coming from Luke. The point refers to Paul’s baptism through Ananias, the bond of union with the community of disciples. This would be in dissonance with the solemn statement of Gal 1:11-12: “The good news that I preached to you… I neither received nor learned from any man.” And not only, but, what’s more, Ananias does not appear at all in the third Lucan account (Heb 26).

Going in parts, Paul himself communicates that he has been baptized: “We have all been baptized to form one body” (1Cor 12:13).

Then: “the fact that the name of Ananias, in other parts of the book (Heb 5,1.3.5; 23,2; 24,1) designates negative characters, tends to confirm for us that the figure of the good Ananias is not a pure invention of Luke.”

Furthermore, in substance, it is abundantly clear that Paul received the revelation from Christ himself. But he himself will declare contents that he knew only by tradition (1Cor 11,23; 15,2-3). And in the last quote it is also about “the good news of the Gospel” (1Cor 15:1-2).

Finally, before a more cosmopolitan audience (Festus, Roman governor, Herod Agrippa II°, Jewish, but Hellenized, Berenice), people, therefore, not exclusively Jewish, as his audience was in 22:12, Paul calmly omits Ananias’ intervention.

4) Paul “apostle”?

It would seem strange to place between questions the most traditional title with which Paul is described: “apostle.” The fact is that here lies another of the approaches in which Luke differs, to the great scandal of many, with respect to the adjective that Paul most prizes in his letters. In this regard, J. Becker declares: “It is also especially shocking that He does not apply to the missionary among the pagans the title of Apostle, fundamental in the Pauline conscience.”

It is undeniable that the concept of Apostle, before Luke, was broader and encompassed people who did not belong to the group of the Twelve. Thus Paul presents himself with this stamp of honor. Furthermore, Luke himself hints at more extensive use here and there. In Heb 14:4.14 Paul and Barnabas, not belonging to Jesus’ inner circle, are called apostles.

But Luke, in the second generation, before the imminent anarchy of private revelations (cf. Heb 20:29-30), wants to ensure the historical uniqueness of the authorized testimony of the Twelve. Hence the enhancement of the link with the Jesus of history (Heb 1:21-22; cf. 10:34-43: the apostles are witnesses of Jesus before and after his resurrection, which is repeated three times).

Well, Paul himself, always so independent, who received his apostolate “not from men, but from Jesus Christ and God the Father” (Gal 1:1.11-12.16-17), however, takes into account, and makes it clear, that his gospel is not different from that of the Twelve: “Both they and I proclaim this which you have believed” (1Cor 15:11). It could be emphasized that in the previous v.5 of the passage just cited, Paul writes in such a way that he offers his own testimony of the importance of the group chosen by Jesus: “He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.” Now, strictly speaking, during the period of the apparitions there were only eleven, since Matthias had not yet been chosen (Heb 1:15-26). But the Twelve was such a consecrated expression to indicate that outstanding team, that, overriding the actual number, Paul used it almost automatically. Which shows the prestige that those dozen men enjoyed in the most ancient Church (not only in “the theology of Luke”), as revealed by Paul’s pen.

Also remember Paul’s concern to be recognized by those who seemed to be “the pillars” of the Church (Gal 1:18; 2:11; Heb 9:26-30).

Luke, therefore, identifies the apostles with the Twelve; it restricts the term to the point that Paul himself practically does not carry that title in his work.

Some Protestants see in this decision an anti-Pauline reaction, discovering there one more feature of “Urkatholizismus” (=proto-Catholicism) and indicating in this New Testament author the roots of the current Catholic Church, even predicting that his works should be extirpated from the biblical canon.

However, there is nothing of a depreciation of Paul in Luke or anything resembling it. The third evangelist will consecrate half of his second book to him. But Paul himself must be resized, placing him in the whole of the reality and development of the Church. Only the Twelve are founders.

It is clear that they personally could not fulfill the program of Acts: to be witnesses to the ends of the earth (Heb 1:8). Paul, precisely, will be one of the most typical collaborators added to this function. He calls himself “abortive”, “the least of the apostles and unworthy of being called an apostle”, even though he immediately adds: “but I worked harder than all of them” (1Cor 15:9-10). Therefore, both things occur: Paul was added to the nuclear group, although mainly through him that germ developed to unsuspected dimensions. The testimony of Paul and that of his contemporaries or successors will always be in a more or less explicit relationship with that of the Twelve (cf. Gal 1,13; 2,2; 1Cor 11,23; 15,3), which, in turn, are tied to Christ himself. The function of the Twelve was not only to witness themselves, but to found, guarantee and control the truth and integrity of the missionaries’ teachings.

Summarizing and, in response to the question with which this section opened, there is no stridency between the legitimate honor of Paul, when he is called “Apostle” (Rom 1,1; 1Cor 1,1; 9,1; 2Cor 1,1; Gal 1,1, etc.), and the relocation that Luke carries out of him, remembering the preeminence and normativity of the Twelve in evangelization, even with respect to himself Paul. They are the “first” Apostles and enjoy a certain prerogative in the Church, also recognized by Paul. But the task that Christ gives them in Heb 1:8 was carried out by “the least and unworthy of being called an apostle” (1Cor 15:9). That is why it is not so wrong to designate Paul as “the thirteenth witness.”

5) Paul “speaker”?

Paul is not a writer by trade or a rhetorician, like those who were trained in his hometown.

His speech is marked by roughness and angularity, interruptions and unforeseen changes. Sometimes it is stark and essential, other times redundant and of typically Semitic richness. He himself offers the evaluation of his capacity, when he states: “I rule in words, not in knowledge” (2Cor 11,6). That is, he does not consider himself a subtle and expert craftsman of speech, but rather a man who deeply feels what he would like to express with his ability to speak: an inadequate word (lógos), but full of knowledge (gnosis). Paul sees nothing but his thoughts, he handles only liquid bronze and lets it cast into the first mold he has at hand, without worrying about fine-tuning it. This lack of polish in his art is certainly his deficiency, and at the same time his greatness, because it makes him an unconscious artist, an author who, without intending it, is a “great writer.” Saint Augustine, a good expert in rhetoric and eloquence, gave this judgment on the matter: “Just as we do not affirm that the apostle has followed the precepts of eloquence, so we do not deny that eloquence has followed his wisdom.”

Now, lately J. J. Bustamante, among the adulterating features of the true image of Paul, attributable to Luke, contrasts Heb 13:8-11; 14,15-17; 17,22-31; 24:10-21 with 1Cor 2:1-4; 2Cor 10,10.

In the passages of Acts we find famous oratory pieces by Paul (especially the speech in the Athenian Areopagus: 17:22-31. In Acts 14:12 the pagans of Lystra confuse him with Hermes, the god of eloquence).

On the contrary, the properly Pauline information suggests Paul’s disdain for oratory, corroborating everything by the impression that he would make on some of his adversaries: “There are those who say that the letters are hard and strong, but the physical presence is a small thing, and the word is contemptible” (2Cor 10,10).

To all this, we believe that A. Vanhoye responded very well (in line with what St. Augustine already sensed), in an article (which J. J. Bartolomé also knows): “The same page where he (Paul) violently repudiates “the ability of discourse” (1Cor 1,17; 2,4), to oppose it “the madness of preaching” (1Cor 1,21), constitutes, paradoxically, an admirable piece of fiery eloquence.”

In 1Cor 2:1-5 Paul discards the recourse to the “sublimity of eloquence”, so that the faith of the Corinthians would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God (v.5). He does not affirm, therefore, that he is incapable of good oratory, but only that he leaves it aside. And in 2Cor 10:10, he will reply to his opponents: “What we are at a distance and by letter (hard and strong), we will also be up close and in action” (v.11). So he comes to say how he knows how to dose the application of his resources, not that he lacks them.

Finally, the fact that two of the greatest preachers and rhetoricians of the patristic era, such as St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine, have confessed that they found their inspiration and enthusiasm in the frequent reading of Paul, is clearly indicating that the Apostle was not so stupid in this regard.

Nor here, then, outside of a superficial contrast, can one denounce in Luke an exalter of his hero, whom, in reality, he would be disfiguring.

6) First missionary steps – Departure for Damascus.

Gálatas offers a different account than Acts, regarding the immediate Pauline activity after the conversion. According to Ga, in fact, he immediately left for Arabia (Gal 1:17). Stage ignored by Luke, who rather expands on Paul’s preaching in Damascus itself, from which he has to flee at night, heading to Jerusalem (Heb 9:19-26).

This “discrepancy” should not be surprising, because, just as Paul in Ga does not tell everything (he does not report, for example, about that flight from Damascus, which he will recall in 2Cor 11:32-33), Luke does not see himself under the obligation to be exhaustive down to the detail.

Returning to Damascus, not only in Ga (an observation that Rivas omits), but in 2Cor 11:32-33, news is given (as just mentioned) of the escape from Damascus. Luke also provides this news (Heb 9:23-25). Except that Rivas only highlights the divergences, without stopping to account for the notable coincidence regarding the stratagem of having to be taken down in a basket.

The main difference is that Luke attributes the plot against Paul to the Damascene Jews, while the 2Cor to the ethnarch of Aretas, king of the Nabataeans.

It is not seen why one cannot think of a joint operation of the Jews (inside Damascus) and surveillance (outside), entrusted to subordinates of the Nabataean king.

If the hypothesis of identifying “Damascus” with the Essene community of Qumran is accepted, the discrepancies dissipate and the panorama is rather clarified.

7) First visit to Jerusalem.

According to Acts, from Damascus Paul went down to Jerusalem and there he was introduced into the circle of the Apostles through the work of Barnabas (Heb 9:27-29).

Paul’s version would be very different. The intention of his first visit to Jerusalem was to visit Peter.

In Rivas’s interpretation, the tenor of Paul’s words seems to downplay the importance of this meeting, because he immediately adds that he remained in Jerusalem for only 15 days (Gal 1:18).

With respect to the other Christians of the Jerusalem community (Rivas continues), Paul affirms that they did not know him personally (Gal 1:22), statements that are strengthened by an oath.

It must be kept in mind again how Paul also cuts his news, focusing it only on what he is interested in demonstrating: that he received nothing from the Apostles of Jerusalem, but that his Gospel came to him directly from Christ.

The fact that an oath is involved gives relevance to the truth of what Paul affirms, without necessarily implying that he is recounting everything.

In this way we explain how, having realized that on that same occasion he also saw James (Gal 1,19), however, he declares that “he was with him” (that is: Peter: v.18) and not “with them” (Peter and James). The Apostle stylizes the story, as is evident. For this reason, with all certainty, he also omits that Barnabas had introduced him to the Christians of the mother church.

As for the lesser importance that Paul would attribute to his meeting with Peter, very different from that of Rivas is the assessment of the Protestant exegete O. Cullmann, who sees in this visit a recognition by Paul of Peter’s leadership, all the more so since, precisely in this epistle, his maximum interest is focused on demonstrating his independence with respect to the apostles of Jerusalem. Certainly in Jerusalem there were other members of the apostolic college who could compare Paul’s preaching with that of the mother church; Therefore, if Paul, who does not yet know him, wanted to undertake his journey primarily to see him and him alone (highlighted by Cullmann), it is clear that news of Peter’s supremacy over the church had reached him.

Rivas concludes well that “the comparison between the two versions allows us to observe that the differences between them are due to the particular theological point of view of each of the sources.” Only, in addition, an effort should be made to also show how the different emphases do not mean contradiction that acts to the detriment of Luke.

8) Second Pauline trip to Jerusalem.

Luke, after Paul’s first stay as a Christian in Jerusalem, gives an account of two others with their starting point in Antioch: the first (Heb 11:29-30) to raise a collection during a famine suffered in the time of Claudius; the second (Heb 15) in order to participate in the Jerusalem assembly on whether or not circumcision is mandatory for Christians of pagan origin.

Regarding the first, Rivas believes he can detect historical difficulties regarding the internal data of the same book of Acts, even disregarding its comparison with Gálatas (since Paul does not remember this visit of his as bearer of the Antiochian collection).

“There is no news – assures Rivas – that during the years of Claudio’s government (41-54) a famine has affected “the entire land.”

On the other hand, other interpreters propose that Luke’s information can be explained, as long as “the whole earth” is not taken in a simultaneous sense. That is to say: that at a precise time and at the same time a famine has been recorded in all the imperial provinces.

“In reality, famine wreaked more or less havoc in various regions of the Roman Empire during almost all of Claudius’ time; noted in Roma from the beginning of his reign (Suetonius, Claudius, 18; Dio Cassius, LX, 11,1-3), that is, in the years 41-42, it is mentioned again there in the year 11 of the same emperor (Tácito, Annales, regions of the Empire, that famine came under Claudius and even more could be said in Judea around the year 44 (in which we are), referring particularly to the three or four subsequent years. The expression all the inhabited (land) is here practically equivalent to the Roman Empire, like the other analogous of the same writer, Lc 2,1.

Rivas, referring to explanations such as the one we have just proposed, objects: “Some authors try to reconcile the news of Tácito and Flavius Josephus by setting an intermediate date (between the years 49 and 50), in such a way that it is possible to speak of a “famine… over the whole earth.” But perhaps the expression “all the earth” in Heb 11:28 should be interpreted giving it the same meaning that it has in Lc 2.1 regarding the census ordered by the emperor Augustus: only in Judea.”

However, there are good reasons to understand the word “oikouméne” in Luke, both in Heb 11,28 and in Lc 2,1, not in a restricted sense to the entire land of Israel”, but in the broader and more usual sense: the Roman Empire as a whole.

In fact, as R. Brown rightly observes, when Luke wants to refer the expression by reducing its scope to Palestine, he uses another expression: “epí pasan ten gen” (Lc 4,25).

Led by the interpretation (inaccurate in the opinion of R. Brown and S. Muñoz Iglesias) according to which “the whole earth” would be equivalent only to Palestine, Rivas is inclined to date the event of the “famine under Claudius”, identifying it exclusively with that described by Flavio Josephus. With which we would have to place ourselves in the years 46-48.

“But this dating – Rivas continues -, despite being earlier than that established by Tácito, encounters a difficulty within the book of Acts itself. Saint Paul’s trip to Jerusalem, bringing relief for this time of famine, is located several years earlier, within the period of the reign of Herod Agrippa I° (years 41-44). The story concludes with the news of the death of this king (12,32). But as has already been seen, the data on the famine refer to a later date: to the time of the Roman governors in Judea.”

B. Rigaux is not as exhaustive as Rivas in his analyzes on the matter. First of all, he confesses that we cannot know with certainty the date of the famine under Claudius, to which the Acts refer.

But there are two very different, although related, centers in these texts:

a) the prophecy of Agabus in Antioch (Heb 11:28) and

b) the collection and sending of delegates to Jerusalem.

If Agabus prophesies, it means that the event has not yet taken place. By immediately adding that the prophecy has been fulfilled under Claudius (Heb 11:28b), Luke introduces an element of uncertainty. In fact, we do not know if the collection began before the famine broke out and how long it lasted, nor at what time Barnabas and Paul were sent. Salwere they made immediately after Agabus’s announcement and based only on that prediction, when the scourge had not yet broken out, or only when it appeared in Palestine, on the dates detailed by Josephus (years 46-48)?

It is clear that the collection is made in Antioch and its surroundings in favor of Jerusalem, which means, without a doubt, that famine had not yet arrived in those parts of Syria. The observation speaks in favor of a plague in “the whole earth”, but not simultaneous in each of its regions.

“The following chapter of Luke (12) does not take us out of the darkness. Reading Acts superficially, it would seem that Barnabas and Paul were in Jerusalem when Herod Agrippa I killed James, brother of the Lord, and imprisoned Peter, after which the king died (Heb 12:1-23). In fact, these narratives are included between the news of the sending of the delegates (11:30) and another (12:24-25) in which Luke He first points out the growth of the Church (v.24) and adds: “As for Barnabas and Saul, after they had fulfilled their ministry in Jerusalem, they returned, taking with them John, who was called Mark” (v.25).

Commenting on the Lucan distribution of this news, Rigaux himself warns: “These last two verses of chapter 12 are related to what precedes in a very loose way and little linked to what follows. They have a clearly editorial character. To base any attempt at chronological precision on them is contrary to every critical rule.”

Now, that is precisely what Rivas interprets, when connecting the trip of the collection with the death of Agrippa I, a union that occurs in the text of Acts, but “read superficially” (as Rigaux warned): “The trip of Saint Paul to Jerusalem – we reproduce Rivas once again -, bringing relief for this time of famine, is located several years before (of the famine according to Josephus – we add -), within the period of the reign of Herod Agrippa I° (years 41-44). The story concludes with the news of the death of this king (12,23). But, as has already been seen, the data on the famine refer to a later date: to the time of the Roman governors in Judea.

Imprisonment of Peter, execution of James, fruitless search for Peter (miraculously released), sending the guards to trial, executing them later, Agrippa’s return trip to Caesarea, where he is said to have “resided” (12:19), receiving embassies, all of this assumes a certain period of time (Heb 12:18-20) prior to the king’s death. No exegete admits that this set of events listed in Heb 12 took place during the visit of Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem.

From which it is concluded that “the literary analysis seems to confirm that the collection trip is not linked to the death of Herod, except through loose ties.”

In conclusion, Luke’s dates are rather floating, they cannot be attached to one more than another, of those recorded by profane historians, within the period that goes from the beginning of the reign of Claudius (41-42) until the famine reported by Josephus (46-48). There is no problem in the fact that the collection was delivered even before the famine specifically broke out in Palestine, the charitable gesture of those of Antioch being based only on the prophecy of Agabus. And if we still insist on connecting it with the year 44 (death of Agrippa I), we reiterate that the mere difference of two years (46-48) with the beginning of the famine described by Josephus is too small, to cast light on the little historical trust that Luke deserves.

Moving forward in the comparison of Paul in Acts with Ga 1-2, Rivas draws more differences: Luke recounts two trips to Jerusalem from Antioch, in addition to the one Paul undertook leaving Damascus. In Gálatas only two are counted and perhaps Paul not only ignores, but denies the visit of alms.

S. Lyonnet already noted this objection, stating that “it is understandable that Paul (in Ga) did not speak of the trip to Jerusalem, narrated in Acts 11:30 and 12:25, because he did not find any of the Apostles there, dispersed by persecution, and limited himself to giving the elders the alms of the church of Antioch in anticipation of the famine that Agabus had predicted (Acts 11,28ff.).”

It is not seen, on the other hand, where Rivas bases his suspicion that Paul “denies” the alms trip.

A famous textual difficulty adds to the confusion that hangs over the “journey of the collection from Antioch to Jerusalem” (Heb 11:27-30 joined with 12:24ff.).

In fact, the most authoritative codices and critical editions read Heb 12:25 like this: “Barnabas and Saul, having completed their ministry, returned to Jerusalem, taking with them John, who was called Mark.” The difficulty arises immediately, since until that moment the story placed Bemabé and Paul precisely “in Jerusalem.” How can it be thought, then, that they “returned to Jerusalem”, if the story has notified anything up to that point that they have left it? There is, therefore, a conflict between textual criticism, on the one hand, which asks to choose the “lectio difficilior” and that attested to by the best manuscripts, and, on the other hand, literary criticism, which, due to the meaning of what is being narrated and what follows, demands: “they returned from Jerusalem.”

In fact, once the service announced in 11:25 has concluded, they take Mark (whose family home, located in Jerusalem, was mentioned, precisely in 12:12), to return to Antioch.

Rivas adds this enigma to those he has been collecting, to call into question the historical credibility of the Lucanian data on Paul’s biography.

Some authors, maintaining the most arduous textual reading, find an explanation in the grammatical fact, frequent in Koine, by which “eis” and “en” are usually confused and interchanged in use, thus acquiring the particle “eis” the static meaning of “en”. If this were admitted, a meaning that would not be strident at all would be obtained with the general context: “Having fulfilled their ministry in Jerusalem, they returned…”.

Rivas takes into account this possibility, which Dupont adopted for his translation in the Jerusalem Bible. But the Belgian Benedictine later changed his opinion for something much more founded.

As we already noted, Rivas is also aware of the article in which Dupont offers a new possibility of response. But we do not explain why, given that this work offers a wide range of attempts at solutions, Rivas does not include a single word about what Dupont himself presents as definitive, nor about the reasons, which, either by context or by vocabulary, are very convincing to clarify this “crux exegetarum.”

First of all, attention must be paid to the distribution and connection of the members in the phrase: “Barnabas and Saul returned to (eis) Jerusalem, having fulfilled their ministry.” The most natural thing is to relate “to Jerusalem” with the preceding verb: “they returned to Jerusalem.” But “to Jerusalem” could also be joined with what follows: “Having fulfilled his ministry in (or: for) Jerusalem.” In that case, we would have: “Barnabas and Saul returned, having fulfilled their ministry for Jerusalem.”

It may be objected that the twist given to the phrase implies an unnatural hyperbaton in Greek. But, at length and with examples both classical and from Luke himself, Dupont verifies that this phraseological order is no exception in Greek, especially if you want to give emphasis to some element of the phrase.

In our pericope, the change in the normal order in the construction (highlighting Jerusalem: yes Ierousalem plerósantes ten diakonía), would be due both to the author’s desire to return attention to the capital of Judea and to the reason that the weight of the narrative will from now on shift to Antioch, as the new starting point of the missionary journeys, with Jerusalem no longer being the point of reference.

J. Dupont, exploring the texts that deal with the same theme (collect) with the same word (diakonia), prefers to extract the meaning of that set of circumstances, to translate: “Having fulfilled the service in favor of Jerusalem.”

The union of this particle with “diakonía” already appears, from the very beginning of the whole news (Heb 11:29): “The disciples unanimously resolved to send help to the brothers of Judea (eis diakononia pempsai).” There is no doubt about the relationship that exists between the two passages, the second (Heb 12:25) being a memory of the first.

Furthermore, whenever the topic of the collection for Jerusalem is discussed in Paul’s authentic letters, the phrase is used: “diakonía eis”: Rom 15:31; “My service in favor of Jerusalem (=he diakonia moú he eis Ierousalem)) 2Cor 8,4; “to have participation in the service in favor of the saints” (tes diakonías tes eis toús hagíous). Ibid., 9,1: “In what concerns the service of the saints” (tes diakonías tes eis toús hagíous).

Here, then, is another palpable agreement (even in the linguistic turns) between Paul’s Paul (in his letters) and Luke’s.

The Traduction Oecumenique de la Bible adopts this solution, presenting this text: “lls se revinrent, une fois assuré leur service en favor de Jérusalem.”

Once again it is striking that, although Rivas is aware of the almost exhaustive analyzes of J. Dupont, he has not given notice, precisely, of the explanation offered by it, nor that he takes it into consideration, to approve or reject it. It seems that the objective of his display of points against Luke was only to rule him out as a valid help to get to know Paul.

In fact, he comments: “These difficulties have led to some authors completely leaving aside the exposition of the book of Acts, as “unworthy of credit.”

9) The Jerusalem assembly.

H. Schlier, B. Rigaux and many authors identify Heb 15 (meeting in Jerusalem on the circumcision of the Gentiles) with Gal 2,1-1.

Reasons:

1. Both stories deal with Paul’s discussion with the Judeo-Christians before the authorities in Jerusalem.

2. These adversaries had entered pagan-Christian communities and also appeared in Jerusalem.

3. Paul and Barnabas and some others around them arrived in Jerusalem.

4. The issue discussed concerned the circumcision of pagans.

5. Paul went ahead with his conviction and an agreement was reached on the matter.

6. A report was also given on the mission among pagans by Paul and Barnabas.

This same background identity makes the dissimilarities between the memory of Paul himself, a prominent actor in the event, and the news collected by Luke more acute. According to Paul, he undertook the journey “by virtue of a revelation” (Gal 2:1-2), while in Heb 15:2 his departure is due to a decision by the church of Antioch.

In truth, it is not seen how one thing is incompatible with the other. “The fact that Paul was sent to Jerusalem by the Church of Antioch (Heb 15:2) does not mean that God inspired him on this trip (Gal 2:2): the hierarchical and the charismatic aspects are not opposed, neither in the Acts nor in Paul, who sometimes cite them simultaneously (Heb 13:2ff; 1Tim 4:14; 2Tim 1:6). In the Pauline perspective the meeting took place between him and the “notables” (James, Cephas and John: Gal 2,6.9). While in Heb 15 the discussion was held before an assembly with all the apostles and presbyters of Jerusalem.

Roloff, whose lack of confidence in Luke we have already noted, presents here, however, more conciliatory perspectives than those of Rivas.

“Along with these coincidences, a whole series of divergences are detected, most of which can be easily explained… In this case (Paul claims to have conferred only with “the columns”, when Acts remembers more massive assemblies), the reason is most likely on the part of the book of Acts. It is easily understandable that Paul does not mention the community assembly or the elders, given the tendentious nature of his account. Paul cannot admit his dependence on the community of Jerusalem or the group of elders; the only ones competent interlocutors that he recognizes are the apostles”.

However, as results from Ricciotti’s explanation, the memory of his contact with a larger audience should not be excluded, not even in Paul. “In fact, according to Heb 15:4, there was first a general reception, where the envoys from Antioch reported “the things that God had done with them.” But then a secret behind-the-scenes activity followed, which is evident in Heb 15:6: “So the apostles and the elders came together to discuss this matter.” That is, without the bulk of the other faithful. The Pauline report can be perfectly accommodated to this order: “They (the community) of Jerusalem in general) I explained the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles, but privately (kat’idianos) (I explained it) to those most visible” (Gal 2:2).

Rivas finds another discrepancy in that, “according to Ga 2,6.9 Paul confronted his gospel with the authorities of Jerusalem, while in the story of Heb 15 the discussion was about the obligations that should be imposed on the pagans who came from Christianity.”

Frankly we do not see such a difference, since Gal 2:2 notifies: “I explained the gospel to them”, but in the following verse, it specifies that “not even Titus, who went with me, being a Gentile, was forced to be circumcised.” That is, a primary aspect of Paul’s gospel consisted precisely in freedom from Jewish law, especially that of circumcision. Now, just that was the fundamental point agitated at the Jerusalem meeting, according to Heb 15.

Compendia Rivas: “The discrepancy between the data in the book of Acts (three visits) and those in the letter to the Gálatas (only two visits) is considered “the most difficult aspect of the reconstruction of Paul’s life” and has given rise to an abundant literature.”

It is true, but, with many other exegetes, we maintain that an effort should also be made to weigh, at least, the arguments of those who see possibilities of agreement.

10) Paul and the “decree of the Apostles”.

Rivas points out a new discrepancy between the Lucan material and that which we know from Ga, since, if Paul’s presence in the assembly of Acts 15 is accepted, on the one hand, according to Luke, in the end a “decree of the Apostles” was drafted (ibid., vv.23-29), which was sent to the Gentiles through Paul and Barnabas (v.22). There the rules that Gentiles who embraced the Christian faith had to observe were established: abstaining from sacrificed meat, etc.

But it seems that such a resolution is ignored by Paul, since he does not mention it in 1Cor, when he was expected to do so, when responding to the Corinthians’ query on this same problem (chaps. 8 and 10,19-33); He never refers to these provisions in the other letters.

But the imbroglio does not only arise from the comparison between the Pauline epistolary and Acts, but (once again) Luke himself would give new signs of his clumsiness, since, when describing Paul’s last arrival in Jerusalem, it seems that only then was he informed by James about the existence of this decree (Heb 21:25), whose promulgation, however, Paul himself would have attended, having also been in charge of its propagation together with Barnabas and others (Heb. 15,22-23; 16,4).

S. Lyonnet already reported on this aporia: “The account of the Jerusalem assembly in Acts 15 assumes, like that of Paul in Gal 2:1-10, that he emerged victorious: according to Acts, the question essentially centers on the obligation, for converted pagans, of circumcision to be saved (Acts 15:1; cf. v.5); and on this point the columns of the Church fully agreed with Paul, which is why he did not They added nothing to their gospel (Gal 2:3-6). The restrictive clauses of James (Heb 15:20 and 15:28) were not intended to make the Mosaic Law a condition for salvation, but rather to facilitate relations between converts from Judaism and converts from paganism; 15,23) and that is why Paul never mentions them in his letters. According to He 16,4 Paul – probably on his own initiative – also communicated them to the neighboring churches of Isauria and Lycaonia, where the Jews were numerous and where precisely he had Timothy circumcised (He 16,3).

Once again, the polemical tone of Paul and the center that captures his attention must be taken into account. He comes out to defend his gospel: faith in Jesus Christ is enough for salvation, without the need for Jewish rites; the second refers to the apostolic authority received by him directly from Christ.

Regarding the latter, we have already seen how the Apostle himself, outside of this dialectic, also notifies what he “received by tradition” (institution of the Eucharist: 1Cor 11,23ff; appearances of the Risen Lord: ibid., 15,3).

In light of this emphatic denial (“the gospel that I preached… I did not receive it from men” – Gal 1,11-12 -, which Paul himself mitigates in other letters), we must appreciate the first, no less blunt: “they imposed nothing more on me” (Ga 2,6), that is, regarding the fundamental heart of the problem. “This phrase can only refer to Jewish prescriptions of which he is precisely dealing with the recipients of the epistle”, not to others (clauses of James), which were not relevant in the Galatic community.

Finally, Paul, in the 1Cor, constantly prefers the motives of charity to the merely legal ones: “Which do you prefer? That he come to you with the rod or that he come with love and a spirit of meekness?” (ibid., 4,21). When dealing with Christian disputes, heard before pagan courts, he raises his sights from pure legal discussion towards Christian perfection: “It is already a reduction that you have lawsuits against each other… but you have been washed, you have been sanctified, you have been justified” (ibid. 6.7.11). The very frontispiece with which he addresses the question of sacrificed meat indicates the high level with which he will deal with the problem: “As for meat sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. But science inflates: only charity builds” (ibid., 8,1). Therefore, Paul goes beyond a legal resolution (the decree with the prescriptions of James). It is moved not only by disciplinary recommendations, but by love for the weakest. Furthermore, even without expressly naming it, in 1Cor 8-9 he will, in fact, recommend the behavior suggested by that document.

Regarding Heb 21:25, where it seems that James informs Paul for the first time about the apostolic decree (abstinence from meat, etc.), another interpretation seems possible.

Indeed, since Paul returns to Jerusalem, the very nest of the Judeo-Christians, he is earnestly requested not to scandalize them with too daring liberties, rumors of which they heard from him. Then, as if clarifying that this restriction (in a predominantly Jewish land) should not be rigidly understood, James clarifies, ensuring that what was previously stipulated remains in place: “As for the Gentiles who have believed, we have already written to them our sentence that they abstain from meats sacrificed to idols…”. As if to say: those continue with the freedom already granted in the Jerusalem assembly (15:28-29), but the Judeo-Christians should not abandon Mosaism. Paul already knows very well about those missives (of which he was the main bearer along with Barnabas); but in the face of a new onslaught of traditional views, he is assured that these advices derogate nothing from what has already been communicated to the pagan-Christian churches.

J. Roloff, who, as has been reported, is not usually very favorable regarding the validity of Lucan reports, on this matter offers no objection: “James’ recommendations end with a reference to the apostolic decree… This is not purely coincidental, but fits perfectly with the context. What James means is that the decisive problem, which has become crucial with the coming of Paul, is how Judeo-Christians living in a mixed community should behave. The other problem, concerning to the situation of the pagan-Christians in these communities, there is no reason to touch it, since it has been resolved by the decree of the council, along the lines advocated by Jerusalem”.

11) The circumcision of Timothy.

Among those who specialize in contrasting Luke and Paul, almost no one fails to refer to the circumcision of Timothy, which Paul orders to be carried out in Lystra. It is J. Becker’s lament: “Paul would have been very hurt to see how Timothy’s circumcision was attributed to him (Heb 16:3; cf. Gal 2:3; 5:11; 6:12.16; Phil 3:4.7).”

The reasons why Paul decided to circumcise Timothy (“because of the Jews who were in those places” ibid., v.3), would seem to apply a fortiori also in Jerusalem, where, however, according to Gal 2,3, Paul manifested his indomitable firmness by not consenting to the circumcision of Titus.

Except that in Jerusalem the discussion was held “in facie Ecclesiae”, within believing circles. They were no longer simply Jews, and Paul could hope that the very force of the Gospel would open the hearts of those Christians, who had already suffered persecution for their faith in Christ, from the unconverted Jews.

In Lystra, on the contrary, those Jews were not yet Christians… and Timothy, although he was the son of a Greek, was also the son of Eunice (2Tim 1,5), a Jewess.

This is how Ricciotti explains the event: “It should not be surprising that here Paul circumcised Timothy, when he had emphatically refused to circumcise Titus… The case was different: in that circumcision it was made a matter of principle, as if it were a necessary rite to achieve salvation in Christ; here the rite was practiced for the sake of the Jews (Heb 16:3), that is, to avoid the usual difficulties that would have been promoted by the Jews whom Paul used to direct. his preaching before anyone else… but this concession did not imply the principle of obligation. The decree of the apostolic council (Heb 15) had dispensed from the rite to the pagans who entered the church, but had not prohibited it to the children of Jews (Timothy’s mother was Jewish) who had freely wanted to accept it: tolerance in certain cases yes, obligation never in any case, for the general reason that “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor the uncircumcision” (Gal 5,6). Paul, who from then on would practice Judaic rites even on himself (cf 18,18; 21,26), induced Timothy to accept circumcision out of practical charity, not out of doctrinal necessity, in accordance with his norm of “becoming a Jew with the Jews, in order to win the Jews” for Christ (1Cor 9,20).”

The episode of Timothy, circumcised by Paul in Lystra, tends to scandalize, especially Protestant interpreters, still indebted to the rigid schematism in which Luther enclosed Paul, who would only be a furious adversary of the law, especially the Jewish law and in it circumcision. Such is the position, for example, of one of the most abundant commentaries on the book of Luke, which is also Protestant. All historicity is simply denied to the fact, because it is considered in direct opposition to the positions of the “authentic Paul.”

Another famous Protestant exegete, even closer in time, thinks the same: J. Roloff.

Applying very sensibly the controls of historical verification, this is how J. Sánchez Bosch sees the facts: “The thing is so serious that it can hardly be invented; both Paul’s friends and his enemies believed him rather inclined to teach the Jews not to circumcise their children (cf. Acts 21:21). And the text of Luke records the fact without writing literature around it… In itself, Timothy’s circumcision responds to a remarkable logic. According to the law Jewish, the son of a Jewish mother is a Jew (that is why Isaac, son of Sarah is a son of the promise, whereas Ismael, son of the slave girl, even though he is the son of Abraham, is not. Cf. Ga 4,22-31; Ro 9,6-9). will allow his son to be circumcised.

Leaving aside his personal preferences, Paul could understand that he could hardly preach that Christ fulfilled the promises made to Abraham if it was clear that among his companions there were spurious children of Abraham (or that they did not honor those descendants).

The Apostle had defended with all his soul that converted Gentiles should not be circumcised and could live with Jews. But Timothy, as the son of a Jewish mother, was a Jew. Therefore, he could be circumcised, even by Paul. He did not fall into the anathemas of Gal 5,2.4… because in this he did not seek justification or salvation (cf. Heb 15,1), but simply to adapt to a point of view, not devoid of reason, of those whom he wanted to evangelize.

The authors who do not pay attention to these reasons (and many Catholics, who are joining these points of view), do not seem to realize that, deep down, they are making Luke a bewildered writer. Because, he himself gives us news, in the previous chapter, that at the “Jerusalem summit” Paul was the champion of freedom for the Gentiles regarding circumcision. Luke’s exposition would be completely inconsistent, if reality had not been imposing itself, remembering that the main defender of freedom from the Jewish rite for pagan-Christians, thought that it was still not so clear for Judeo-Christians, not as an element of salvation, but as pedagogical steps to be taken. Above all for missionary reasons: not to hinder the presentation of the Gospel before the Jews with useless provocations to their religious sentiment.

If it is true, as Roloff points out, that the baptized (and Timothy already was) belongs to the new creation, in which all the realities of the old, among which Paul considers circumcision, have ceased to have meaning (1Cor 7:17-24)”, it is no less true that in the same letter we read: “Being completely free, I become a servant of all to win them all, and I become a Jew with the Jews to win the Jews. For those who live under the law, I act as if I were subject to it, when I am not, in order to win those who are under it” (1Cor 9,19-21). Now, how would one become a Jew with the Jews, without some concrete demonstration? And… in that case, would it be a merely diplomatic stratagem, a hypocritical simulation, the good end justifying recourse to the already obsolete means of the old alliance? Wouldn’t it be a trick to be well? with God and with the Devil, with Christ and the Torah? “Not that he used duplicity,” Allo answers; “He has always firmly maintained that salvation was founded on faith in Jesus Christ, not on the justice of the law… But he himself respected Jewish customs when they were estimated at their fair value, as venerable practices of devotion… On the other hand, when they wanted to impose these practices on Gentiles as necessary for salvation, or at least, to acquire the character of a complete Christian, then he reacted with intransigence.”

VI – Some conclusions.

Not all the points that raise conflicts between the contributions of Luke and Paul have been reviewed.

Even so, what has been exposed has been enough to provide an overview of serious questions that are related to important areas of exegesis, as well as theology and faith itself.

a) History: essential in the Christian faith.

If the rejection of a naive fundamentalism is correct, which considers the biblical texts as the material equivalent of events (an exaggeration related to the curiosity detectable in the apocrypha, eager for “extra news”), on the other extreme, it is easy to end up in an exaggeration of the “theological sense”, the “theologoúmena”, in a word, slide towards a certain “gnosticism”, which advocates ideas, but to the detriment of that that everyone proclaims as essential to Christianity, characterized as the revelation of God throughout history.

In a review of another work by G. Lohfink, which also has to do with the Acts of the Apostles, F. Hahn warned precisely about the devaluation to which the author subjects the pre-Lucan material, coming from tradition and history, to give wide channel predominantly to analysis of “Lucan theology”: “In any case it remains to be considered, if there is not more traditional foundation than what is assumed here, for the Lucan representation of the Ascension, even when, with this, a historically verifiable event cannot be understood… We cannot ignore that Luke has very strongly impressed his own theology and way of composing in his two writings, but, conversely, we must investigate more closely where there is actually redaction and where Luke, for his part, builds on tradition.”

With this we do nothing more than connect with the desire for patristic exegesis. According to St. Gregory the Great, “In the absence of truth, edification is nothing… May meaning not depart from the authenticity of history.”

A fundamental ingredient of biblical revelation is at stake and in this regard, the following consideration by G. Courtade is very topical: “There is not and will never be a sacred or religious physics. Which is why God has not transmitted any physics lesson to us through sacred writers. But there is a “sacred history”, of extreme importance from the religious point of view. That is why God has inspired writers to teach it to us.”

b) Luke, theologian of history.

In the specific case of Luke, the discredit with which he is being shrouded produces the disastrous consequences of presenting his production as a degeneration of the first and most genuine Christian preaching, a deviation which, with very little ecumenical spirit, is called “Urkatholisch” (=proto-Catholic) by many Protestant interpreters, who thus establish a “canon within the canon”, forging another iron dogma, according to which, the most anciently traceable has the appearance of being authentic, contrary to more recent developments, which would fatally distort the original intentions of Christ or Paul.

Thus we have been able to observe that in more than one exhibitor, the attack on Lucan presentations on Paul’s career is such that they only specialize in detecting their (alleged) failures, without even offering a single reason why they can be considered reliable.

This is the same author of the third gospel, and if his “solemn misunderstandings” are admitted, will he be given credit when he informs us about the virginal conception of the Son of God in Mary, in relation to episodes or teachings that only he has collected (parables of the good Samaritan, the Pharisee and the publican, the encounter with the ten lepers, Martha and Mary, the dialogue with the repentant evildoer on Calvary, etc. etc… )?

c) Contradictory figures of Paul?

Returning to the Lucan portrait of Paul, with regard to the Apostle’s doctrines (disproved, according to many, by episodes that Luke would make him star in against all plausibility), it will be useful to remember with several authors that the coexistence and company of Paul and Luke does not necessarily imply community in the same theological approach. Likewise, the differences that may be perceived are not necessarily in the order of contradiction. Even, on the contrary, even if the author of Acts has never seen Paul, he may be theologically in his entourage.

But, above all, we should always keep in mind two questions formulated by O. Bauernfeind: “In what sense should we expect to find in Acts “Paulinism” or “specifically Pauline thought”? What is the “Paul” in the name of which a criterion would be established, on the basis of which we can protest? Because, in fact, modern criticism is quite divided regarding the admission of Paul’s authentic letters. In this case, to get an idea of the “Paul of Paul” Will we turn to Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, and the Pastorals, accepted by many as authentic, or will we discard them as spurious and not from Paul?

It would be absurd to think that Luke knew the entire Pauline epistolary. But, what’s more; Even the contemporaries of the Apostle saw, as the same interested party confesses, a difference between the “written” Paul and the “present” Paul: “For there are those who say: “The letters are serious and strong, but the presence of the body is a small thing, and the word is of no value”” (2Cor 10:10). And, finally: in what sense does Luke intend to “belong theologically to Paul”? Because Luke’s manifest admiration for Paul is one thing and his theological dependence is another. Consequently, it must be admitted that the real Paul was a little more complex, so as to be able to enclose him in an anti-legalistic scheme or only in the theme of Romanos and Gálatas.

It must be granted, however, that the views of Paul and Luke are partial and are falsified by opposing them at all. It is not, then, that they thought differently, but that the angles under which one and the other write, sometimes seem to oppose them, when that is not the case deep down.

One fact is undeniable: no matter how much distrust Paul’s expositors demonstrate in theory toward the Acts of Luke, they have to accept them in practice. Thus, for example, G. Bornkamm, W.G. Kümmel, who confesses: “But the significance of the news from the Acts of the Apostles is nevertheless great.” As already said, not only is the Pauline chronology, absolute or relative, due almost exclusively to Luke, “but it is also thanks to Luke that we can analyze the overall structure of Pauline thought, without this preventing us from verifying it by a certain structuralism (of Paul’s own works), and then marveling at its agreement.”

The fine appreciation with which J.M. Lagrange gave an account of both the differences and the coincidences between the paintings of Paul (in Acts and the Letters): “How many portraits, very similar, in which the person who has posed is easily recognized, do not resemble each other! The Paul of the Acts, even when he has been drawn from life, is made to be exhibited in a gallery of historical personalities, with the features that, due to a varied and prolonged action, the public remembers. The Paul of the letter (to the Gálatas) reveals himself, under the deep and even stinging impression he experienced the day he made a painful decision. His wounded tenderness, his belittled authority, the perfidious cunning of his adversaries, among which the most notable was praising his Judaizing opportunism, forced him to accentuate his thesis, to vindicate the independence of his ministry, to clearly denounce the danger.

d) Theology and history.

Finally, if biblical history is not univocally comparable with that of Egypt, Greece or Roma, in the case of “salvation as history”, it is clear that we are faced with a “history sui generis”, in which something will always escape purely scientific sensors, and in which no less scientifically (if we want to respect its object, without prejudice against the supernatural) it must give way to faith.

Nevertheless, neither faith nor “theology” can swallow up the historical foundation on which they rest. Therefore, while agreeing with the underlying view, it seems that something was missing from this conclusion of Rivas: “In the prologue to the first work, the Gospel, he does not promise to narrate the facts accurately so that readers may remember them, but «so that you may know the firmness of the teachings you have received» (Lk 1:4). It is not history for the sake of history itself, but a theological work that requires a historical foundation, while history always remains subordinated to theology”.

In keeping with the purpose of this study, it occurs to us to comment that “theology”, built upon Christian revelation, is too closely bound to history for one systematically to cast doubt on most of the data supplied by an inspired writer without, moreover, highlighting any of his considerable successes. Little service would have been rendered to “the firmness of what has been believed” by someone who had not taken care to offer reliable memories. For this reason, the means (equally and clearly indicated in the aforementioned prologue) by which the theological objective would be attained should not be relativized so much: “It seemed good to me also, after having followed all things closely from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you” (ibid., v.3).

To consider Luke only as a “historian” may have been a one-sided framework, “but — I.H. Marshall rightly comments — one may reply that the contemporary approach which views Luke almost exclusively as a theologian is equally one-sided”. Hence his effort to show that “Luke is both historian and theologian, and that the best term to describe him is «evangelist», a term which, we believe, includes both”.

In short, it does not seem plausible that Paul’s “Luke, the beloved physician” (Col 4:14), the faithful disciple and friend who remained at his side when everyone abandoned him in one of his imprisonments (2 Tim 4:11), would in his memories have been such a treacherous (or muddleheaded?) distorter of Pauline history and thought.

Author: Rev. Fr. Dr. Miguel Antonio Barriola

Source: Apologetica.org