Lecture 12: Paul: The Letter and the Spirit of the Law

Lecture 12: Paul:

The Letter and the Spirit of the Law

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Introduction:

Here we look at the oldest writings in the New Testament, the epistles-or letters-written by St. Paul. To Paul fell the theological problem of exactly how Christianity should relate to its parent religion, Judaism: was Christianity a continu­ation of Jewish tradition or a break with it? For Paul, this question was practical as well as theological: were Christians, whether they were Gentiles or Jews, bound to follow the Old Law of the Mosaic covenant? Paul's answer to these questions was paradoxical, managing to preserve the divine authority of the Old Law while simul­taneously holding it non-binding on Christians-as long as they followed the "spirit of the Law." Here we'll look briefly at how the Acts of the Apostles depicts both the crisis of the Law in the early church and the conversion of Paul from Pharisee to Christian. Then we'll tum to Paul's own writing on the Law, drawing primarily from his Letter to the Romans. Lastly, we'll look at how Paul's teaching on the Law informs the literary depiction of sin and sanctity.

Consider this. . .

         1. What are some examples in fiction where we see conversions like

         Paul's-where the convert becomes the zealot and furthers the faith?

         2. When Paul wrote his letters, how did he intend for them to be read? By

         the church to whom he addressed each letter? By all Christians?

Paul: The Letter and Spirit of the Law.  Paul's writings are the oldest in the New Testament and written for the pur­poses of establishing principles of doctrine and answering questions about Christian behavior. Paul wrote between 35 and 65 A.D. Mark, the earliest evangelist, wrote his gospel around 65 A.D. Matthew and John wrote around 80-90 A.D. John may have written as late as 100 A.D.

I. The Acts of the Apostles narrates the problem of the Law in the early

church. At first the church viewed itself as a renewal of the Old Covenant and all of its Law; it was composed primarily of Jews. As the church began to attract Gentile converts, several theological questions needed to be answered.

A. Acts focuses on the circumcision controversy as a metaphor for the ques­tion of the Law. Gentiles argued that circumcision was not required by the new covenant, but only by the old covenant with Abraham.

B. Acts depicts the role of Paul in solving the problem of the Law, and also describes Paul's conversion from zealous defender of the Law to believing Christian.

1. Paul began his career as Saul and a persecutor of Christians.

            2. But on the proverbial road to Damascus, he is converted (see

            sidebar).

3. In Damascus, Ananias baptizes Paul and tells him that he is to be God's "chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the chil­dren of Israel." (Acts 9:15, KJV) This meant Paul was chosen to share the covenant with the Gentiles and interpret God's laws for them.

C. Now Paul must wrestle with how God's promise to the Israelites relates to his new covenant with the Church. Paul cannot simply discard the old covenant; in Romans 11: 1 he states, "I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. "

D. Paul's dilemma is complicated: how can he uphold the traditions of the Law but not impose the restrictions of the Law on the Gentile converts?

II. In his letter to the Romans, Paul solves the problem of the Law by dividing it into the Letter and the Spirit. Perhaps one of the best examples of Paul's explanation of this concept is 2 Corinthians 3:6: "God also hath made us able ministers of the new tes­tament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. "

A. Paul argues that "the letter kills": Literal obedience to the Law cannot save. Paul states in Romans 3:20 that the Law doesn't save: "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justi­fied in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. "

B. But, Paul argues, "the spirit gives life." The true purpose of the Law is God's gift of faith. If one has faith, that is more important than following the law.

C. Paul regularly associates the "letter of the law" with the body at its worst,

   advising Christians to walk after the spirit:

   1. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law) how

   that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

   (Romans 7:1, KJV)

   6. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we

   were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the

   oldness of the letter. (Romans 7:6, KJV)

   III. Paul feels the spirit of the law is the important part of God's covenant.

   Therefore, if the Gentiles are true Christians and practice Judeo-Christian

ethics, they are following the intent of the law. He writes in Romans 3:14-15:

14. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the

   things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto

   themselves:

   15. Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their con­

   science also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while

   accusing or else excusing one another. (Romans 3:14-15, KJV)

   A. Paul also discusses the elements of the spirit, the most important of

   which is love or "charity."

   "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth anoth­

   er hath fulfilled the law." (Romans 13:8, KJV)

   His most famous praise of love appears in 1 Corinthians 13:

   1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have

   not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

   2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,

   and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove

   mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

   3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give

   my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

   4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth

   not itself, is not puffed up,

   5. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily

   provoked, thinketh no evil;

   6. Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

   7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth

   all things.

   8. Charity never fai/eth (1 Corinthians 13.1 .8, KJV)

B. Paul views love along with faith

as the paramount symbol of Christianity. For Paul, the end of the Law is faith, and he argues that the real meaning of the law­including circumcision-is faith. In Romans he gives his arguments in chapter 4, verses 9-11:

9. Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.

10. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circum­cision, but in uncircumcision.

11. And he received the sign of cir­cumcision, a seal ofthe right­eousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also. (Romans 4:9-11, KJV)

C. He concludes his arguments that faith is really what saved Abraham, not his adherence to the Law or his circumcision. Faith fulfills the Law.

30. Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.

31. Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. (Romans 3:30-31, KJV)

IV. Paul's definitions of the spirit and let­ter of the law had an enormous literary influence on the depiction of both vil­lains and heroes in literature.

A. Perhaps the clearest example of the influence of Paul's teaching on the letter and the spirit may be seen in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice,

where Shylock's insistence on his literal pound of flesh borrows heavi­ly from Paul's writings about how the carnal letter kills.

1. The Jewish character, Shylock, wishes to entrap the Christian Antonio

by entering into a legal agreement with him. If Antonio cannot repay money borrowed from Shylock, then let '~n equal pound of your fair flesh be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleaseth me" (Merchant of Venice Act I, Scene 3, II. 148-50) in a parody of circumci­sion. Shylock's association with the old Law runs throughout the play.

2. The Venetian Christians for whom Shylock is a foil speak with a vocabu­lary borrowed from Paul's discussion of the spirit. These characters use the phrase "by faith" and ask Shylock to forsake his pound of flesh in the name of love.

3. Shylock is finally defeated since the deadly letter of the law applies to him as well as to Antonio. If he takes blood along with the flesh, he will die because he has violated the letter of the law.

a. The court scene in which Portia appeals to the intent of the law

     utilizes much Pauline vocabulary. (Act 4, Scene 1)

IS THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ANTI-SEMITIC?

Whether or not William Shakespeare, particularly in The Merchant of Venice, shared the anti-Semitism of his Elizabethan contemporaries has been much debated.

Some readers argue that the play contains plenty of evidence that Shakespeare was an anti-Semite. Certainly Shylock is an anti-Jewish stereotype: greedy, conniving, and violent, he is the very type of the so-called "stage Jew" who had been a stock comic villain in English plays for centuries. Shylock additionally is tainted with the "blood libel"; his pas­sionate desire for the Christian merchant Antonio's death, especially with his statement that "I'll go in haste, to feed upon I The prodigal Christian" (2.5.15-16), recalls the ludicrous yet frequent charges that Jews slaughtered and ate Christians as part of their religious rites. And certainly the Christian characters in the play despise Shylock simply because he is a Jew; all of them would no doubt agree, although perhaps more grammatically, with the clown Launcelot Gobbo's statement that "the Jew is the very devil incamation" (2.2.25). Having written a play with so much anti-Semitism in it, some readers believe, Shakespeare would appear to be anti-Semitic himself.

Other readers disagree, saying that Shakespeare wished to critique the very anti­Semitism so prevalent in the play. The major piece of evidence for these readers is Shylock's famous "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech that begins at 3.1.59, a speech that adduces the common humanity shared by Jews and Christians. Indeed, these readers argue, Merchant demonstrates, as when Shylock berates Antonio for his prior scorn (1.3.104 ff), that Shylock's hatred of Christians is the product of and answer to Christian hate. The play thus exposes the hypocrisy of the Christians in the play, who talk about love and mercy yet fail to extend them to Shylock.

The Merchant of Venice is, of course, a play and not a theological or political treatise. As a work of literature, it does not offer any unambiguous argument and any statement about anti-Semitism we derive from it is a matter of interpretation. But while all readers may not agree about the degree of anti-Semitism in the play, most would agree that Shakespeare here offers plenty of matter for contemplating the question.

b. Shakespeare's use of Paul's words is made even clearer in Portia's

famous courtroom speech:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:

Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown;

His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;

But mercy is above this sceptred sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,

, It is an attribute to God himself,'

And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That, in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation. . . (Act 4, Scene 1, II. 182-198)

B. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, like Shylock, insists on a literal reading of a contract; Faustus finds that the letter kills, whereas the faith he disdains would lead to life.

1. Faustus enters into a legal agreement with the devil that gives the devil

Faustus' soul in exchange for 24 years of magical power. In the scene In which the agreement is sealed, the devil tells him 'Thou must bequeath It solemnly and write a deed of agreement with thine own blood. "By enter. ing into this contract, Faustus is bound by the "letter of the law."

MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS

In Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe examines the power of knowledgo ver sus that of faith. Faustus is a scholar who has studied everything from medicine and law to philosophy and theology. But he is not satisfied. Faustus decides th~1 his next challenge will be black magic. He conjures the spirits, and Mephistophillil appears. He learns later that his magic is not the cause of this appearance, bul II1MI his curses on the Holy Trinity have brought the devil.

Faustus is faced with a difficult decision. Should he heed the Good Angel's warnln'I" 10 return to God and concentrate on heaven, or should he follow the Bad Angel's odvlc8 Mnd seek honor and wealth? Faustus agrees to sign a contract giving his soul to Luclfor In retum for twenty-four years of power and magic.

As the twenty-four years run out, Faustus becomes more apprehensive,waltlng for Iha devil to take him to hell. The Bad Angel returns to wam Faustus of the never ending pAllu. of hell. The Good Angel tells him that the mouth of hell is ready to take him. Fauslu8 bag.

for exemption from his contract, wishing he had had no soul to give in the first place. 1\1 midnight, the devils come to drag Faustus into hell.

Doctor Faustus focuses on the deception of pride. Faustus' sin is not his black moglc bul hl8 dlmllli of God's powers. The contract, the law, has bound him to the devil, when only f..1I11 mulcJ I1'MI glvon him life. Even allhe end of Ihe ploy, Foustus' pride sland. In Ihlt WilY of IIlIkll1U 101 lor~lvon988 from God and bGlng 8E1vud by hie faith.

THE HYMN "AMAZING GRACE"

"Amazing Grace," perhaps the best-known hymn in modern America, was written by the clergy­man John Newton (1725-1807) and published in Olney Hymns (1779), a collaborative effort with the poet William Cowper. The opening stanza of Newton's hymn encapsulates the evangelical experience of conversion:

Amazing grace!

(how sweet the sound) That sav'd a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am

             found,

Was blind, but now I see.

Newton told the story of his early life of sea adventures and religious

conversion in "An Authentic Narrative," published anonymously in 1764.

The son of a commander

of a merchant ship, John

Newton first went to sea

with his father at the age

of eleven. Ultimately he

became captain of his

own ship, one which

plied the slave trade. In

May, 1748, a violent

storm struck his ship and threatened to destroy it.

Newton recorded in his

journal that when all

seemed lost and his ship

would surely sink, he

exclaimed, "Lord, have

mercy upon us." In the

calm after the storm he

reflected that his life had

been saved by God's grace-Newton there­

after celebrated this day,

May 10, 1748, as the day

ffi of his conversion. His

I:!! change of heart was so

e:; complete that he became

~ both a minister in the

~ Church of England and a

~ vociferous opponent te

o the slave trade.

w ..J

90

2. In Act 5, Scene 1, an old man appears to appeal to Faustus in the name of Pauline Christian virtues: This is what he says,

Gentle son. I speaketh not in wrath, Or envy of thee, but in tender love, And pity of thy future misery.

And so have hope, that this my kind

rebuke,

Checking thy body, may amend thy soul. I see an angel hovers o'er thy head, And with a vial full of precious grace, Offers to pour the same into thy soul. Then call for mercy and avoid despair. (Act 5, Scene 1, II. 49-53, 60-63)

3. But Faustus rejects this appeal and

   chooses damnation over faith.

Summary:

Here we saw that it fell to Paul, as the Apostle to the

Gentiles, to solve the crisis that the Torah caused for the early Church. As the Book of Acts depicts, some in the early Church argued that the Jewish covenant and its laws, including circumcision and dietary purity, was binding on all Christians. Gentile converts to Christianity, however, were loath to be circumcised or to abandon their usual dietary practices.

Paul solved the crisis through an allegorical reading of the Law: Christians were not bound to follow the Old Testament Law literally-because "the letter kills"-but were bound to fulfill the ethical, moral, and religious teachings that the Law was designed to propagate. Most particularly, Paul argues, the Christian is to have faith, which is a free gift of God, or a grace. Faith, along with love and other virtues, comprised for Paul the spirit of the Law-and it is "the spirit that gives life."

Paul's letters had a tremendous influence on the writers of the Gospels, and hence on Christian the­ology. The most important Christian theologians­including Augustine, Luther, Calvin-have drawn on them. Paul's influence, however, is not just theologi­cal but also literary, and we ended by looking at how some of English literature's most famous vil­lains and tragic figures have exemplified Paul's teaching that "the letter kills but t!let spirit gives life."

FOR GREA TER UNDERSTANDING

Consider

I

1. How did Paul solve the problem of the Law in the early church?

2. Does Paul's teaching that faith alone saves mean that believers need

not perform good works?

            3. Is Paul's teaching that "the letter kills" anti-Semitic?

Suggested Reading

Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus. Micheal Mangan (ed.), New York:

   The Penguin Group, 2000.

Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. New York: Simon &

   Schuster, 1976.

   Other Books of Interest

Cornelius, R.M. Christopher Marlowe's Use of the Bible. New York: Peter

Lang Publishing, Inc., 1984. This volume is no longer in print but avail.

able through www.barnesandnoble.com.

Marx, Steven. Shakespeare and the Bible. New York: Oxford University

   Press, 2000.

McBirnie, William Steuart. Search for the Twelve Apostles. Tyndale House

   Publishers, 1979.

Murphy-O'Conner, Jerome. Paul: A Critical Life. Oxford: Oxford University

   Press, 1998.

Wilson, A.N. Paul: The Mind of the Apostle. New York: WW. Norton &

   Company, Inc., 1997.

Websites to Visit

1. http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/merchanU - full text of The Merc.b.nnl of

    Venice on-line.

2. www.perseus.tufts.edu/Texts/faustus.html- full text of Marlowe'sOoctor

    Faustus on-line.

Christian Symbol-Agape

               LOVE:

The different types used

        in the scriptures.

Hebrew and Greek both have a number of words to distin­guish among different sorts of love, and these distinctions are lost in English translation because we have only the one word "love." The KJV uses "love" and words related to it to translate various Hebrew nouns, verbs, and adjectives that name very different sorts of love, from sensual desire to compassionate mercy.

The translators of the KJV were somewhat more careful in rendering New Testament

Greek, using "love" to translate only agape, "selfless love"-the term Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 13, where the KJV calls it

"charity"-and phileo, a more general term that can range from the hypocrite's desire for praise in Matthew 6:5 to the Father's love for the Son in John 5:20. Elsewhere, the KJV New Testament attempts to strictly translate terms for differ­ent sorts of love, so that, for instance, philadelphia becomes "brotherly love" .(as in Romans 12: 1 0), philanthropia "love towards man" (Acts 28:2, and philarguira "love of money."

(1 Timothy 6:10) The writers of the New Testament avoided the term eros, which connotes mainly sexual passion.

SAUL'S CONVERSION

Saul, a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin, was born in Tarsus

and claimed Roman citizenship. He was well educated in and zealous about Jewish Scriptum and tradition. He studied under Gamaliel, a noted Jewish scholar in Jerusalem. As a member of the Pharisees (a group that held that Jews were bound by both scripture and tradition), he persecuted his fellow Jews who believed Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah. After a dramatic and transformational conversion experience-usually called the

Damascus Road

experience, he became known as Paul the Apostle. During his conversion experience, he saw a great light, was blinded, and was spoken to  by God. Paul became a devoted  and avid disciple of Jesus Christ, an outstanding missionary of the first century, and the earliest author in the New Testament.

C. Paul regularly uses the metaphor of the soul and body to represent the spirit and letter of the law. For example, in Romans 7:

22. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my

mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. (Romans 7:22-23, KJV)