Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination
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As a Christian apocalypse, we should not be surprised to find that the Apocalypse of Paul has numerous affinities with the Jewish apocalypses and Jewish apocalyptic traditions. These traditions influenced many early Christian writings, especially the apocalypse genre.[7] According to Collins, Jewish apocalypses are generally placed in two categories: those with otherworldly journeys and those that are “historical” accounts.[8] The Apocalypse of Paul matches the otherworldly journey genre, and to the extent it alludes to Jewish apocalypses, it draws from those that also highlight otherworldly journeys. In particular, we see several intertextual connections to Jewish texts: judgment scenes in the Testament of Abraham 10.7–10 and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah 6.8–11, as well as the old, shining man from Dan. 7:13 and 1 Enoch (Similitudes) 46–47.[9] Although the Apocalypse of Paul shows direct dependence upon Jewish apocalyptic traditions, the transposition of the God of Israel to a lower status, the mention of the Ogdoad, and bodily imprisonment betray the gnostic propensities of this text.[10] Thus, we see a performance of the apocalyptic Paul with stage lights that have the hue of Jewish and gnostic apocalyptic themes. With this background in mind, we can address the apocalyptic elements in the Apocalypse.
Paul as an Apocalyptic Character in the Apocalypse of Paul
Given the relatively short length of the Apocalypse, we have the opportunity to focus on the use of specific Pauline passages as well as wider apocalyptic themes. The most obvious Pauline text that comes to mind when reading the Apocalypse is Paul’s ascent to the third heaven in 2 Cor. 12:1–5, yet key themes are also drawn from Galatians 1–2 (esp. 1:15–19) and Eph. 4:8–10. To evaluate the representation of Paul as an apocalyptic character, we will focus on the themes of revelatory experience and hidden knowledge, divine and spiritual agency, and individual eschatology.
Revelatory Experience and Hidden Knowledge
The otherworldly journey surely is the basis for the text bearing the title of an “Apocalypse,” a revelation. Though this heavenly experience is different from that described by Paul in his letters (2 Corinthians 12; Galatians 1–2), this journey serves to confirm a common image with the letters: Paul is one who has experienced divine revelation, and therefore, he is to be considered as possessing equal authority with the other apostles. The revelation accounts in Galatians and 2 Corinthians serve to establish his apostolic authority vis-à-vis other apostolic leaders, with direct or indirect conflict in view. In the Apocalypse, however, there is no hint of conflict. Paul is on the mountain of Jericho and will be ascending to Jerusalem (an allusion to Gal. 1:17–18), where he will meet the twelve apostles. The ascent to Jerusalem is, therefore, re-interpreted as an ascent of the soul to the highest heavens, which is exactly what the rest of the Apocalypse entails.[11] Even though he sees the apostles bodily in creation (20.1–4), Paul also sees them ascending with him from the fourth to the fifth (21.28–30), and to the sixth (22.14–16) heavens. They are not mentioned in the seventh heaven, but he again encounters the apostles, his fellow spirits, in the eighth (24.1–3), ninth (24.4–6), and tenth heavens (24.7–8). He does not, in fact, meet anyone else—no other divine figures or mediators—in the highest heavens except for the apostles. Thus, in the Apocalypse, Paul’s status as a spiritual authority is confirmed by his ability to ascend to this highest level. However, rather than situating his authority in contrast or distinction to the others, Paul cooperatively ascends to the highest level along with the apostles.
Like other apocalypses there is a tension between revealing hidden knowledge from the revelatory journey and keeping the mysteries secret. Paul is called to “Let your mind awaken . . . so that you may know the hidden things in those that are visible” (19.10–14). Paul is the model of the soul who learns this hidden knowledge about himself and about the creator God: 1) Concerning himself, Paul learns of his true spiritual nature and tells the old man “I am going to the place from which I came” (23.9–10), which is presumably the tenth heaven. 2) Concerning the creator God, he is one who governs the world of the dead as well as the lower heavens, and he tries to hold back the souls that attempt to ascend to the highest heavens. In several other apocalypses, the one on the celestial journey often receives a commission to share (if only partially) the details of the heavenly realities. Likewise, Paul has an implicit commission to share this knowledge, though his ministry is described esoterically as taking captive the captivity. This ministry, which subverts the demonic powers, brings us to the topic of divine and spiritual agency.
Divine and Spiritual Agency
Spiritual agency infuses the narrative of the Apocalypse. The activity of the Spirit vis-à-vis the judging and detaining demiurgic old man and his angels, who control the fourth through the seventh heavens, sets the context for the power dynamic within which Paul’s ministry will take place. The function of the (demonic) angels, these principalities and authorities (ⲛⲁⲣⲭⲏ̣ ⲙⲛ̄ ⲛⲉⲉⲓⲉⲝⲟⲩⲥⲓⲁ), is important to the whole narrative. Near the beginning of the entire account, the Spirit tells Paul to awaken his mind because of the agency of “principalities and authorities and archangels and powers and the whole race of demons” (19.3–5). As the story progresses, these evil powers serve as the main antagonists (besides the old man who controls them)—20.6–10; 22.2–10; 23.18–22, 28.[12] Accordingly, the main plight described in the narrative is the activity of these heavenly beings who torment, judge, and hinder the ascent of souls.
One of the key intertextual engagements with the Pauline letters relates to this demonic agency. In the seventh heaven, while Paul is being detained by the demiurgic old man, the old man asks, “Where are you from?” (23.11). Instead of his origin, Paul shares his destination: “I am going down to the world of the dead in order to lead captive the captivity that was led captive in the captivity of Babylon” (quoting Eph. 4:8–10). A distinct shift occurs from Ephesians 4 where Christ gives leaders to the church as a gift. Rather than Christ as the divine agent who takes the captives, it is Paul who will take the captives. However, when Paul returns to the world of the dead in the Apocalypse, this would serve a role not unlike those gifted leaders in Ephesians 4.
In contrast to the judging and imprisoning work of these demonic powers, the positive divine agent is the Holy Spirit. Indeed, Paul is led and empowered by the Holy Spirit throughout. The one who comes to Paul in the form of a little child (18.6, 13) is later identified as the Spirit (18.21), and this Holy Spirit is the one who guides Paul through each of the heavenly levels, often by speaking with him. It is important that we have not noted the agency of Christ in this work.[13] There is no mention of Christ in this text; only the Spirit leads, empowers, and enlightens Paul.[14] This coheres with Paul’s distinctly spiritual eschatological experience, which we will address now.
Individual Eschatology
The narrative is implicitly about the experience of life by ascent away from the world “of the dead” (20.9–10, 18–20; 23.13–14). However, the problem is not merely individual and anthropological; it involves the demonic agents who rule over the world of the dead. For example, the soul that is punished in the fourth heaven is charged on the basis of the testimony of three angels, but the angels were the very ones who led the soul into sin.[15] As the sins were committed “[in] the body” ([ⲉⲓ̈ϩⲙ̄] ⲡ̣ⲥⲱⲙⲁ , 20.23, 29), the punishment for the soul is a return to a(nother) “body which had been prepared for it” (21.19–21). A body–spirit dualism is evident here, where the body is viewed as part of the punishment for sin. The anthropological problem of sin and imprisonment in the body are correlated and intertwined with the cosmic punishment carried out by the evil powers.
In distinction to bodily punishment enforced by these angels, the Apocalypse presents a spiritual ascent as the goal for believers. The souls that are able, such as Paul and the apostles, ascend to the highest heavens as spirits. While this eschatology presumes a separation from the body, the spiritual ascent to the heavens appears to be one that can be (partially) experienced
in the present. Since there is no mention of Christ, the experience of death and life is only framed around a body–spirit dualism rather than an embodiment of Christ’s death and resurrection, which is a primary focus in Paul’s letters.
Now that we have explored the employment of particular Pauline texts and themes, we can analyze how the Apocalypse presents Pauline theology in an apocalyptic framework.
Preliminary Conclusions
After considering these apocalyptic elements—revelatory experience and hidden knowledge, divine and spiritual agency, and individual eschatology—we have a basis to present a categorization of this text. Though the Apocalypse does not specifically use the OT, it has a decidedly retrospective point of view with regard to Jewish themes. That is, the theology presented here entails a radically new interpretation of the old, rather than a prospective view where the new is a fulfillment of previous promises. The creator God of Israel is (allusively) presented as the old man, the demiurge, who hinders souls rather than helps them. In fact, Kaler interprets this gnostic turn as a means of ironic transposition of the apocalyptic genre. Drawing from a similar critique by Pheme Perkins related to the Apocalypse of Adam,[16] Kaler argues that this is really an anti-apocalypse.[17] While the Apocalypse of Paul uses a variety of “apocalyptic clichés,” the text also subverts the perspectives offered by more traditional Jewish texts: an angel is not his guide, but is actually a potentially subversive figure; the trial scene is a “mockery of divine justice”; and finally, Paul’s experience of the creator God shows him to be a “threatening but ultimately ineffectual old man.”[18] Kaler is responding to the decidedly retrospective paradigm in the text, where the new stands in strong discontinuity with the old, in contrast to Jewish apocalypses that work more from a prospective model. We will be able to assess this more fully once we incorporate the evidence from our second text. Accordingly, we now turn to explore the Acts of Paul.
The Acts of Paul
Rather than focusing on one narrative episode, as the Apocalypse of Paul does, the Acts of Paul is a collection of stories that narrate Paul’s ministry and eventual martyrdom over the course of fourteen chapters.[19] Emphasizing continence and the resurrection, it includes numerous miracles (some fantastic, such as the baptism of a lion) and several run-ins with civic authorities as Paul travels on one single journey from Damascus to Rome with various stops along the way. The textual tradition, as we have it, includes subsections, such as the well-known Acts of Paul and Thecla, 3 Corinthians, and the Martyrdom of Paul. These sections later circulated independently (and possibly before, especially 3 Corinthians), but our earliest manuscripts contain all the major sections together, so I will treat the work as a whole here.[20]
The Actsof Paul stands with a handful of other apocryphal acts—Acts of John, Peter, Andrew, Thomas, and Philip—written in the second and third centuries.[21] There has been a question of genre regarding these acts: are they filling in the gaps of the canonical Acts, or something else? An increasingly popular opinion is that the acts are modeled more on the gospels than on Luke’s Acts, in that they focus on the miraculous life of one protagonist and then (except for Acts of John) record his martyrdom.[22] (In fact, given the lack of continuity with Luke’s Acts, there is a question of whether the author of the Acts of Paul even knew of the canonical work.) Accordingly, the very structure of the Acts of Paul demonstrates an affinity between the main character (Paul) and Christ.
With this general framework in mind, we can now address the Acts of Paul directly with our question of how it presents Paul as an apocalyptic theologian.
Paul as an Apocalyptic Character in the Acts of Paul
The Acts of Paul (APaul) is much longer than the Apocalypse, so our treatment of themes and topics will be more synthetic. That said, the discussion of how Paul is presented as an apocalyptic theologian is based on a selection of relevant texts from throughout the narrative. We will address the following apocalyptic elements: divine and spiritual agency, resurrection hope and apocalyptic ethics, and political engagement.
Divine and Spiritual Agency
One primary element in apocalyptic writings is the activity of God in rectifying the problem of evil in the world, which is often perpetrated by cosmic powers. In APaul, God’s past action through Christ’s death and resurrection is evident, and God remains active throughout the narrative. It is infused with the miraculous, namely, numerous healings (APaul 2, 5) and people are even raised from the dead (APaul 5, 14). In addition to divine agency, the influence of angelic beings is also important, such as Satanic opposition and the appearances of angels (e.g., 3.6; 5; 9.2–3; 9.19).
God’s action to save Christians from persecution is especially noteworthy (3.22; 6; 9.22–27). For example, Paul and Thecla have a variety of visionary experiences of Christ himself in persecution settings, which attest to his continued active role in the world. In one instance, Thecla sees a vision of Christ (3.21), and after being saved from her second death sentence, she prays, “My God, . . . Christ Jesus the Son of God, my helper in prison, my helper before governors, my helper in the fire, my helper among the beasts, you are God and to you be glory forever” (4.17). With this direct and unambiguous affirmation of the deity of Christ, the shape of God’s activity in the narrative is shown to be distinctly christological in nature.
After one encounter where an angel appears to Paul and speaks in tongues about Paul’s upcoming persecution at Pentecost (9.2–3), Paul explains that he cannot be sad because “the Spirit which fell
In fact, this christological framing of Paul’s experience is evident in a subsequent vision of Christ. As Paul heads to Rome by boat, Christ appears to him walking upon the sea (APaul 13). Christ looks downcast, and Paul is disturbed and enquires why. The Lord responds, “Paul, I am about to be crucified afresh” (13.2). Misunderstanding this as a literal, second crucifixion, Paul objects. In response, Christ reiterates the call for Paul to go up to Rome, a call the Spirit had already revealed to him and others earlier (12.2–5). Rather than Christ literally being crucified again, Paul’s death will serve as an embodiment of Christ’s crucifixion. Thus, we again see how the christological perspective reframes the meaning of Paul’s experience and presents God as still active even in the midst of evil events.
Though the larger plot is framed around Paul embodying the experience of Christ in his missionary journey, the narrative is also permeated with the leading and revealing work of the Spirit. Likely in response to the disjunctive readings of the OT by gnostic opponents, as is evident in the concerns of 3 Corinthians (10.1–2), the narrator highlights the Spirit’s inspiration of the OT prophets (10.4.9–10; 13.5–6). This same Spirit is the one who inaugurates the incarnation of Christ (10.4.5–6; 10.4.12–14; 13.7) and who leads and empowers Paul and other Christian prophets (9.7–9; 12.2). Thus, God’s economic activity is presented through the lens of proto-Trinitarian theology.
In contrast to the work of God himself through Christ and the Spirit, the work of demonic powers against God and his economy is evident. Besides general demonic oppression (cf. APaul 7), the emphasis is more directly on the devil. There are ascriptions to the “adversary” (APaul 6), “the lawless one” (10.2), “the evil one” (10.4.2; 14.3), and the “devil” (14.1). Accordingly, the nature of salvation through the incarnate Christ is a defeat of this evil one, as 3 Corinthians 10.4.14–16 explains: Mary “received the Holy Spirit in her womb that Jesus might enter into the world, in order that the evil one might be conquered through the same flesh by which he held sway. . . . For by his own body Jesus Christ saved all flesh
Resurrection Hope and Apocalyptic Ethics
The focus on the resurrection is prominent throughout the entire narrative.[23] The first two chapters are quite fragmentary, but the first full section we have is the well-known Acts of Paul and Thecla (APaul 3–4). In chapter 3, the emphasis on the resurrection of Christ establishes the importance of this theme for the rest of the narrative (3.1, 6, 15–18, 25, 30). In fact, the hope of a future resurrection in the pattern of Christ (e.g., 3.39) grounds the eschatological reevaluation of the traditional social and economic values.
The nature of the resurrection hope in APaul is most evident in the 3 Corinthians exchange (10.1–5). The letter refutes a number of generic gnostic claims: issues related to resurrection, Jesus not coming in the flesh, and the world being created by angels rather than God (10.2). In response, Paul defends the bodily life and resurrection of Christ and then gives a variety of defenses for the resurrection of the “flesh” (σάρξ), such as the seed metaphor, the example of Jonah, and the corpse rising when it touched Elisha’s bones (10.5.24–32). This text stands as a materialist perspective on the resurrection in opposition to gnostic immaterialist conceptions of eschatology.[24] In the letter, Paul then correlates the hope of resurrection to his willingness to suffer, and he holds out that same assurance to others who believe and remain faithful even in hardships (10.6.34–36). In contrast, there is punishment for those who turn away from Christ (10.6.37–38). This distinct emphasis on resurrection of the body allows for an eschatological reframing of life.