The Person and Teaching of St. Paul
"The Gospels are the story of the things that Christ said and did: the Acts, instead, the story of the things that the other Paraclete said and did." Inspired by these audacious statements of St John Chrysostom, for 10 years the Franciscan Institute of Spirituality and the Etheria Cultural Association have been organizing very interesting symposia in Turkey to deepen our knowledge of some aspects of this "Gospel of the Spirit", and in particular those aspects regarding Paul, chosen as an eminent preacher of the Gospel (Acts 13:2), and the environment where he carried out his apostolic activity (Acts 16:6-7), which for this reason has become a privileged "place of incarnation" for the Gospel. Cities such as Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, Miletus, Colossus, etc., for a Christian are not so much geographical sites as milestones on a road used by the Gospel to give life to the world.
This year's symposium began precisely at the geographical "reconstruction" of the city from which Paul left on his first missionary journey, Seleucia (now Samandag). The archaeologists Giovanni Uggeri and Stella Patitucci reassembled the fragments scattered by numerous earthquakes, thus restoring to history an important city surrounded by 12 km. of wall, three metres wide, and fortified by rectangular and semicircular towers.
The details concerning the discovery of polychrome mosaics now preserved in the museum of Antakya are interesting, as are those about the harbour that was completely buried but is well preserved: so much so that a governor of Aleppo would have wanted to empty it and reuse it.
Antonio Carile spoke about Cilicia, where Tarsus is located. He dwelt on the Byzantine period, when it was the base for the Eastern-Roman military expeditions against the Persians. Its economy was organized for this reason with factories for armaments and products useful for the army, including those that came from the trade practised by Paul's family: they were tentmakers, using goat skin (cilicium), much sought after because waterproof and mothproof.
Evacuated by Emperor Anastasius because of the rebellious and independent attitude of the population, the region was repopulated by Armenians and became the site of "Little Armenia", ally of the Crusaders.
After discussing the environment the speaker went on to talk about the most important man born there, analyzing some aspects of his teaching with Fr Marco Adinolfi, who stressed Paul's ingeniousness in using the language of the time to express Christian concepts, such as "reconciliation". The term now quite familiar, was first used by the Apostle, who took it from the political world.
Fr Marco Nobile spoke about his relation with the historical-cultural and Jewish religious context of the first century, in which mystical currents and experiences were present. Referring to some passages in the Second Letter to the Corinthians, he dealt with the Apostle's mystical experience, emphasizing that "one of the most famous and common elements in these mystical speculations was the chariot on which God had appeared to the prophet Ezekiel, which thus became the divine image on which to concentrate one's spiritual faculties in order to encounter the God of glory in a mystical experience".
It seems that St Paul wants to communicate part of this personal experience when he develops the brilliant idea of the new Christian identity characterized by the Spirit. "The law of the Spirit", said Romano Penna, "freed the believer from all subjection to the law of sin and death, a liberation that was impossible for the Law of Moses, not due to a weakness on its part but because of the weakness of the flesh in which man finds himself entangled. God made the new result possible and effective because, by sending his Son to share our carnal condition, through him he radically condemned the sin of the flesh, that is, he 'dethroned' it by taking up residence in its house".
Ugo Vanni spoke about Paul's presumed anti-Judaism. He maintained that the strong expressions from which it originated, present in the Letter to the Philippians — "Look out for the dogs, look out for the evil-workers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh" — referred to the pagan world, "because the Jewish level on which Paul lived", the speaker said, "was a decisive overcoming of these pagan abominations". He thus proposed a new interpretation of the passage in which the "dogs" refer to the pagan practice of male prostitution; the "evil-workers" are those who perform the works of the flesh; and "those who mutilate the flesh" represent a cultural and mystical current.
Giuseppe Ghiberti expanded the theme by speaking about the "relationship between Jews and Christians in the Acts of the Apostles", saying that "in Luke's work the Jewish reality is recognized as having a certain economy of privilege, but an actual break is also acknowledged, so that they are basically made responsible for harshly opposing the advance of the Gospel. However, at the same time, it is acknowledged that there is great good in them and that their rejection of the apostolic preaching is indeed worthy of God's reproof, but not the loss of their destiny with all its privileges".
The statement is valid, even though Acts closes with words that leave us perplexed: '"This people's heart has grown dull...’, words of Isaiah that Luke uses as a warning to Israel, which will have to be reunited under Jesus the Messiah, the new Davidic king".
Speaking of another "meeting", in this case between some presbyters and the heads of the Church in Corinth removed by them for no plausible reason, Giancarlo Pani referred to the First Letter of Clement to the Corinthians, pointing out the "Paulinism" that marks it. "Even if we can identify some differences from the thinking of Paul, the fact that the Letter, by expanding the discussion, attempts a reconciliation between Christianity and paganism with great respect and without contamination, allows us to say that the basic reason for this reconciliation is in line with the theology of Paul".
Waldemar Turek and Dalmazio Mongillo examined respectively the presence of "Pauline texts and the sin against the Holy Spirit in Irenaeus" and "the Pauline paraenesis in the light of St Thomas' lectura ad Romanos". Turek pointed out that in a passage of the Adversus haereses Irenaeus makes it clear that the unforgivable sin can mean in practice the Christian's lack of cooperation with the gifts distributed by the Spirit: Mongillo said that "the moral activity of the faithful is the fruit of the newness of life that Christ achieves through grace in the faithful".
Jumping over the centuries, Alvaro Cacciotti identified Pauline echoes in some mystical authors of the late medieval period, such as William of Saint-Thierry, Hadewijch of Antwerp, Jacopone da Todi, Angela of Foligno and other refined mystics of the time, "who agree that the Pauline unitas spiritus describes the possible passage between man and God achieved by the union of the Spirit of God with the spirit of man".
The symposium, which this year was held mainly in Antioch, also offered specific topics on the person and activity of Peter, who lived for a while in this city. Mauro Pesce and Adriana Destro presented the Apostle as an example of Christian discipleship. Even after changing from Simon to Peter and identifying himself with Jesus' objective — to make the disciple pass from death to life — he cannot go where the Master goes unless he first experiences his inability to follow him. It is only after realizing this that he can "follow" Jesus, that is, go where he does not want to go as the Master did.
"His own growth process", said Sergio Zincone, speaking of Peter in St John Chrysostom — "shows some constants, such as the faith and zeal which are at the basis of the mission entrusted to him by Jesus, that is, of guiding the Church. The invitation to guide his flock that Jesus extends to him not only shows the love between Jesus and Peter, but also that whoever loves the sheep also loves their supreme Shepherd".
Peter's love — Alba Maria Orselli pointed out — was useful to Theodoret of Cyrrhus to offer a multifaceted model of Christian holiness that is basically one: a model constructed by using a sophisticated idiom full of cultural resonances, which, in regard to episcopal holiness, drew extensively from the New Testament texts on Peter and Paul.
With an original emphasis Frederic Manns pointed out that, while studies abound on the ecclesiology of Peter, who speaks of "a chosen race ... a spiritual house ... a holy nation", nobody has spoken about his definition of the Church as a brotherhood. Peter speaks of it in two texts (1 Pt 2:17 and 1 Pt 5:9), in which the speaker noted that brotherhood means acknowledgement of a fatherhood identical to what is recalled in the parable of the prodigal son: the elder brother must accept that the younger brother, despite his behaviour, belongs to the family of God.
Also referring to the First Letter of Peter, Ivan Bodrozic showed how it was used by Fulgentius of Ruspe to refute the Arian heresy in relation to the pneumatologico-Trinitarian question, Christological doctrine, the liturgy and ecclesiology.
The final topic of the symposium illustrated the veneration given to Peter and Paul in the West, the Praedicatio Petri and the Petrine sees according to Gregory the Great. Gennaro Luongo pointed out how Paulinus of Nola framed the role of Peter and Paul as evangelizers and patrons in a theological concept that considers the saints as "supervisory workers" over the individual regions for the administration and protection of the world. "This idea", he said "explains for Paulinus the close relationship between Rome caput mundi and the principes apostolorum, showing their role not only as patrons of the city, but of the Roman Empire, whose preservation is entrusted to their intercession and to that of the martyrs venerated within the Romuleos fines".
Maria Grazia Mara spoke of the Kerygma Petrou, an archaic text, perhaps a collection of homilies given in various places to different listeners and circulated under the name of Peter in a period that extends from his death to the first half of the second century. For the first time in this text we find the identification Law-Christ, taken up later by some Fathers of the Church and developed in the sense that Christ is not the Law, but the legislator who gave a new and definitive law to replace the old one.
In speaking about the "Petrine triarchy" in Gregory the Great, that is, the unity of the Petrine sees of Rome, Alexandria and Antioch, Francesca Cocchini maintained that the Pope's firm conviction about this reality is inferred from — among other things — an icon commissioned by Rusticiana, a great friend of Gregory's who moved to Rome from Constantinople in 569. The icon, preserved in St Catherine's Monastery, shows St Peter with three keys.
At the end of the symposium Mario Maritano drew from the First Letter to Timothy the qualities of a deacon, who should be a "picture of charity": generous, unselfish, a man of unity, steadfast in doctrine, of good reputation and living according to God.
It is superfluous to say that this year's symposium will again make a considerable contribution to knowledge of the person and work of Paul, "who", said Cardinal Camillo Ruini in opening the meeting, "is best understood when one understands his Tarsus origins". We would add that our knowledge would be even more complete if we could know something more about other places in Asia Minor where Paul worked. This is becoming possible as a result of archaeological activity: in Ephesus, for example, a cave 15 metres long has been discovered. There are three layers of frescoes in it, a portrait of the Apostle and 300 graffiti which not only confirm his presence in the city, but also the veneration which the early Church had for him.
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