Jerusalem to Illyricum: Earliest Christianity through the Eyes of Paul

By Paul Barnett

Jerusalem to Illyricum is the geographical space and ca. AD 34 to 57 the time frame for Paul's church planting mission. Acts includes this within its meta-narrative, and while historically accurate, it is not raw history like Paul's letters. In this study Barnett is seeking references to Paul's initial missionary "arrival" (eisodos) and the local cultural pushback. Of particular interest for history and theology is his encyclical to the Galatians and his account of the dispute with Cephas in Antioch. Paul's success in his mission to the gentiles in Syria and Cilicia provoked the rise within the Jerusalem Church of those he calls "false brothers" whose colleagues travelled to "agitate" the Galatian believers and to drive the gentile believers in Antioch from the common meal. Some years later a band of preachers from Jerusalem sought to capture the church in Corinth, intending to then capture other churches in Macedonia and Asia. Paul's missions and writings have been the subject of numerous large studies which, however, unintentionally imply that Paul's mission years were longer than they were and that his mission writing occupied a lengthy time space. His nine missionary letters were written ca. AD 48 to 57, a mere decade, and all of which point to Paul's astonishing energy and drive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Release date: Jan 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781666798517

Paul Barnett

Paul Barnett is a teaching fellow at Regent College, Vancouver, and a visiting fellow in ancient history at Macquarie University in Australia. He was the Anglican bishop of North Sydney from 1990 to 2001, and is the author of Jesus the Rise of Early Christianity.

Book preview

Jerusalem to Illyricum

Earliest Christianity through the Eyes of Paul

Paul W. Barnett

Jerusalem to Illyricum

Earliest Christianity through the Eyes of Paul

Copyright ©

2022

Paul W. Barnett. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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.

Cascade Books

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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paperback isbn: 978-1-6667-3816-2

hardcover isbn: 978-1-6667-9850-0

ebook isbn: 978-1-6667-9851-7

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Names: Barnett, Paul W., author.

Title: Jerusalem to Illyricum : earliest Christianity through the eyes of Paul / by Paul W. Barnett.

Description: Eugene, OR: Cascade Books,

2022

| Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers:

isbn 978-1-6667-3816-2 (

paperback

) | isbn 978-1-6667-9850-0 (

hardcover

) | isbn 978-1-6667-9851-7 (

ebook

)

Subjects: LCSH: Paul, the Apostle, Saint. | Church history—Primitive and early church, ca.

30-600

.

Classification:

BS2505 B37 2022 (

paperback

) | BS2505 (

ebook

)

version number 090122

Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter 1: Jerusalem to Illyricum

Chapter 2: Damascus

Chapter 3: Paul in Jerusalem (ca. AD 36)

Chapter 4: Paul in the Roman World

Chapter 5: Paul’s Mission and his Letters

Chapter 6: Paul in Syria and Cilicia (ca. AD 37–47)

Chapter 7: Return to Jerusalem (ca. AD 47)

Chapter 8: Paul in Galatia (ca. AD 48)

Chapter 9: The Incident in Antioch (ca. AD 48)

Chapter 10: Bravery at Philippi (ca. AD 49–50)

Chapter 11: Paul in Thessalonica (ca. AD 50)

Chapter 12: Paul in Corinth

Chapter 13: Ephesus, the Gospel Hub to Asia and Achaia (ca. AD 53–56)

Chapter 14: Paul’s Darkest Hours (AD 55–56)

Chapter 15: Last Word from Corinth

Chapter 16: Luke, Paul, and Other Missions

Chapter 17: The Historical Paul and the Historical Jesus

Chapter 18: Summary Observations and Reflections

Appendix

Bibliography

For much loved children

David, Peter, and Sarah

. . . I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience—by word and deed.

—Romans

15

:

18

1

Jerusalem to Illyricum

Paul’s Mission Geography

P

aul’s signature summary of

his ministry was: . . . from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ.¹ Those locations marked the geographical extremities of his church planting. As it happened, Paul’s last few months in Corinth proved to be the end of his mission years. Those that remained for him were to be spent in various prisons, with only a brief period of freedom.

Writing from Corinth to the Romans in the winter of AD

57

Paul was conscious that, the task fulfilled, he must now travel to Rome to prepare a platform of mission support for his foray to the west, to Spain.

Based on data gleaned from his letters and with a little help from Luke-Acts we can establish the geographical and historical boundaries for Paul’s mission. It began in Jerusalem in ca. AD

34

and ended in Illyricum in ca. AD

57

(Rom

15:19

). In short, within a span of not much more than two decades this man introduced the message of Christ into no less than six Roman provinces.²

Limitations of the Acts of the Apostles

My contention here is that the circumscribed geography (Jerusalem to Illyricum) and the defined chronology (AD

34

–

57

) allow us to do what we are unable to do by Acts, create a likely history for Paul’s first years as a believer.

Consider for example the Acts account of Paul’s involvement in the birth of Christianity. The first eleven chapters of Acts focuses our attention on Peter and his missionary sermons. Saul (Paul) is only introduced at the stoning of Stephen (

7

:

58

), followed by accounts of his persecutions in Jerusalem (

8

:

1

–

3

), finally by the events in Damascus and his return to Jerusalem, and from there to his journey to Tarsus (

9

:

1

–

30

). But as for more information about the persecutor-become-preacher we must await Luke’s narrative of Paul’s return to Jerusalem years later (Acts

21

:

37

—

22

:

21

).

Reference to Paul’s preaching of Jesus as the Son of God is another example of the differences between the book of Acts and the apostle’s letters. Paul’s letter to the Galatians states that God called Paul to proclaim [God’s] Son among the Gentiles (Gal

1:16

). In the review of Paul’s preaching reflected in his letters, the message of the Son of God was front and central. Acts, however, only once refers to Paul preaching the Son of God (

9:20

).

I am not inferring that Luke’s information about Paul is inaccurate. On the contrary, it is almost certain that Paul himself was one of the sources that the author of Acts employs for the writing of Acts several decades later.³

It is significant that Paul is but one of several sources for the Acts’ account of the birth of the church, notably Peter, John Zebedee, Barnabas, and James, brother of the Lord. In Paul’s letters, however, he the writer is not an onlooker, but a participant. What he writes is raw history.

Chronology and Geography

Awareness of chronology, time frames and geography are important. It is common to refer to Paul’s missionary journeys giving the impression that he was constantly on the move. However, Paul remained in Syria and Cilicia for a decade engaged in ministry, although we have few details. He stayed in Corinth for almost two years until he was effectively forced out. From Corinth he exercised pastoral oversight to the Thessalonians by his two letters to the church. He relocated to Ephesus for three or more years overseeing his ministry to Corinth and the Asian churches by letters delivered by trusted coworkers. He was in Macedonia for more than six months up to or beyond the border of Illyricum. Rather than think of Paul the traveler it is more accurate to do so locating him at strategic bases from which he regulated his network of churches.

Chronology and geography are important as they provoke inquiry about the when and where that pinpoint the circumstances in which Paul came to hold the elements of faith noted, for example, in his letter to the Galatians.

By contrast, (and for example), Geza Vermes’s words about Paul makes no mention of chronology and geography in relation to the origin of the apostle’s beliefs.⁴ By ignoring these he is readily able to dismiss Paul’s beliefs as idiosyncratic and wilful.

The Brevity of Paul’s Mission Years

Awareness of chronology and time frames for Paul are important.

There are many fine studies devoted to Paul’s life and doctrines, for example, by Ridderbos (

587

pages), Dunn (

807

pages), Schnelle (

695

pages), Van Bruggen (

411

pages). Robert Jewett’s magisterial commentary on Romans (

1000

pages) occupied the author for more than two decades; the apostle wrote the letter in three months.⁵ These vast and careful studies are, among other things, interested in the historical setting, the connectivity of his doctrines, and the rhetorical influences discernible in his letters. All of this, and much more, speak of academic inquiry into the origin and depth of Paul’s thought.

This mountain of scholarship might give the impression that Paul’s mission years were many. On the contrary, they were few. The very length of these major studies tend to obscure the urgent speed with which Paul established churches and dispatched his remarkable pastoral epistles. The time span from his apostolic call at Damascus (ca. AD

34

) to his final departure from Corinth (ca. AD

57

) was about

23

years. Even more remarkably his nine letters to the churches in five provinces were written between ca. AD

48

(Galatians) and ca. AD

57

(Romans), a mere decade.

Paul’s Letters as History

Each of Paul’s letters is a historical document, a window into his mind and into the attitudes of the people about whom and to whom he wrote. Each is a historical artifact, and the more valuable since he is not writing in a deliberately historical sense.

a. Autobiographical Elements

It may be objected, however, that Paul’s letters are follow up correspondence,⁶ responding to theological and moral issues that have arisen in the churches. Furthermore, as argued below, the letters are said to have minimal autobiographical information that might facilitate employing the letters to provide a historical reconstruction of events. Daniel Chae quotes Ben Witherington’s important judgment:

Since Paul himself provides few autobiographical remarks . . . we can hardly do without some help from Acts in any case. Because the Pauline letters are not by and large autobiographical in subject matter, it is a mistake to consider them an overwhelmingly more primary source for reconstructing a picture of the historical Paul than Acts.⁷

This assertion, however, is open to question as there are sufficient autobiographical (or, personal) references in the letters that provide useful information about Paul, his travels, and his ministry. For example, in Galatians Paul narrates his movements:

Jerusalem, Damascus, Arabia, Damascus, Jerusalem

Syria and Cilicia, Jerusalem, [Galatia], Antioch

Paul’s letters are not autobiographies, yet at many points they are autobiographical in character. Indeed, his signature statement that "from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ" (Rom

15

:

19

) is autobiographical on a grand scale and incorporates all other locations within it.

b. Geographical Elements

The same gospel-itinerary Jerusalem to Illyricum encapsulates lesser geographical locations within in the letters. Paul’s letters are addressed to geographical places or people from a geographical place:

Addressees Provenance

the churches of Galatia Antioch

all the saints who are at Philippi Caesar’s household [Rome]

the church of the Thessalonians (

2

) Corinth

the church of God that is in Corinth Ephesus . . . the churches of Asia

Philemon [in Colossae] Ephesus⁸

the saints . . . in Colossae Ephesus

the saints [who are in Ephesus] Ephesus

the church of God . . . at Corinth

with all the saints

in the whole of Achaia Macedonia [Berea?]

all those in Rome the whole church [in Corinth]

Paul makes only one direct reference to an identifiable historical event that involved him:

At Damascus, the governor [ethnarchēs] under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands. (

2

Cor

11

:

32

–

33)

This small but important statement casts light on Paul’s secret location in Damascus hiding from the ethnic governor of Aretas IV, king of Nabatea, capital Petra. Paul had recently been present in Arabia, Aretas’s kingdom (Gal

1:17

).⁹

We note, also, that Paul sometimes states where he had traveled and where he intended to travel:

Galatians

1

:

21

Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia

1

Thessalonians

3

:

1

–

6

From Athens Paul sent for Timothy

2

Corinthians

1

:

19

Silvanus and Timothy came to Paul in Corinth

1

Corinthians

16

:

5

–

9

Planned: From Ephesus to Corinth via Macedonia

2

Corinthians

8

:

23

Paul is sending Titus and two others to Corinth

Romans

15

:

22

–

32

To Spain via Jerusalem

c. Paul’s Travels

Based on the foregoing it appears that Witherington’s verdict that we can hardly do without some help from Acts is a little overstated. Paul’s own words from Jerusalem and all the way round to Illyricum geographically enclose Paul’s mission travels. If, based thereon, we turn to his letter to the Galatians we are able confidently to locate Paul in these provinces. Paul exercised his ministry in Judea, Syria and Cilicia, and Galatia during the initial decade and a half of his apostolic call. For his ministry to the three remaining provinces (Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia) we reasonably state that Paul followed that route in geographical order after his mission in Galatia. In short, it is possible from his letters to reconstruct the route in which Paul established churches that agrees with the sequence in the Acts of the Apostles.

d. Paul’s Letters as History

It is common for scholars to set side by side the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters, as complementing each other. Although the book of Acts has many detractors, at the same time there are formidable authorities who argue for the basic historicity of this text. Later in this study I wish (humbly) to join those who look to this text as providing a history of the early church.¹⁰

This, however, does not mean that, reciprocally speaking, I relegate Paul’s corpus to limited roles, for example, answering questions from the churches and introducing further teaching theological and/or moral teaching as needed for the moment.

On the contrary, I assert that Paul’s letters are historical records, albeit accidentally. Paul did not set out to write history (as Luke most certainly did) but, in his correspondence to his churches, that is precisely what he did. It is the secondary and incidental information (for example, the autobiographical and the non-theological) that encourages us to regard Paul’s epistolary corpus as history. Not least in importance is that he knew his critics would have been quick to fault him if inaccuracies could be detected.

Paul’s numerous details are enclosed within his ministry arc (kyklō) from Jerusalem as far around as Illyricum. In the nine letters written throughout the years AD

34

–

57

, he alludes to people and events in six Roman provinces. Remarkably, he wrote those nine letters in a mere decade (ca. AD

48

–

57

). There is no extant data about the origins of Christianity earlier than found in Paul’s letters.¹¹

e. Paul’s Letters and the Acts of the Apostles.

The Acts of the Apostles is no less history than the Letters of Paul. It is a matter of genre. The Acts of the Apostles is a chronicle or narrative, one moreover that is part of a meta-narrative, Luke-Acts. Luke’s great story begins in Jerusalem with the birth of John the Baptist (ca.

6

BC) and ends with Paul’s open arrest in Rome (ca. AD

62

).

Whereas Paul’s letters are immediate and raw, the book of Acts depends on the author’s access to earlier sources. Whereas Paul’s letters are a primary, underived source, the book of Acts is a derived, secondary text based on earlier written or oral testimony.

As we shall see, however, the apostle Paul was a traveling companion of the author for many years.¹² At the very least we can be confident that those part of the Acts featuring Paul are accurate.

The Integrity of Acts

The employment of Acts to establish chronology is only valid if the text is historically reliable. That is precisely the issue. Many of the great names in biblical studies have expressed scepticism about its historical value, for example, F. C. Baur, E. Haenchen, P. Vielhauser, and J. Knox. R. I. Pervo went so far as to say, the book [of Acts] is very difficult to use as a firm historical source because of its many gaps and improbabilities . . . Acts is not a reliable history of Christian origins . . . Luke murdered the history of the early church.¹³

The book of Acts, however, has not been without its defenders, and includes such authorities as M. Hengel, F. F. Bruce, C. Hemer, R. Riesner, and C. Keener.¹⁴ In defending Luke’s usage of Paul in Acts, Daniel Chae effectively establishes the integrity of the book of Acts overall.¹⁵

The Value of Paul’s Letters studied independently

I was prompted to reflect on the extent to which Paul divulges information about his apostolic ministry to his readers upon reading his I worked harder than any of them (

1

Cor

15:10

). I pondered what would happen if for the moment I focused on Paul’s writings to recreate a first-person narrative. There would, of course, be very large gaps in the story, but there might be a unique sense of outlook. I concluded that studying Paul’s letters directly and independently of Acts confronted me with historical immediacy and a directness that would be lost if I attempted to amalgamate Paul’s letters with the book of Acts. Historical inquiry demands separate, independent study of each.

Damascus to Corinth

For convenience and for the moment I am restating the arc-like Jerusalem to Illyricum itinerary as Damascus to Corinth. It was at or near Damascus in c. AD

34

that God called Paul to preach his Son among the Gentiles, that is, appointed him as an apostle (Gal

1:16–17

). Paul’s letters have many references to preaching the Son of God, consistent with God’s initial calling. From about the early months of AD

55

Paul decided to say farewell to the churches in Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia, and visit Rome in transit to Spain.¹⁶ He was, however, duty-bound to finalize the welfare collection for the mother church in Jerusalem.

Paul arrived in Corinth for winter in AD

57

where he wrote to his mission support group in Rome (Acts

20:2–3

). It was in Corinth that he wrote his signature statement, from Jerusalem and all the way around to Illyricum I have fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ (Rom

15

:

19

). His brief stay in the Achaian capital completed the ministry arc that began in Jerusalem, specifically at or near Damascus. His ministry in the east fulfilled, Paul was now ready to travel to Rome and further west.

Conclusion

Was Paul’s Jerusalem to Illyricum a retrospective summary of his ministry to that point, or was it a plan he worked out during his return to Jerusalem from Damascus? The carefully rhetorical shape of his words supports the view that it was a plan that came to him very soon after God called him to proclaim the Son of God among the Gentiles.

Whilst the Acts of the Apostles is an invaluable source accounting for the birth of Christianity, it belongs to a distinctly different genre when compared to Paul’s letters. The author Luke-Acts was a chronicler who narrated almost seven decades of events from the birth of John the Baptist through to Paul’s imprisonment in Rome. Furthermore, this author only wrote as a participant in the events he narrates for AD

50

(when he joined Paul in Troas) and AD

57

–

62

(when he re-joined Paul in Troas and remained his travel companion until Paul reached Rome). For the story of the church from its beginnings in AD

33

to his travels with Paul in AD

57

this author was entirely dependent on the oral and written testimony of others.

Paul’s letters, however, are historical in character, the more so since he did not envisage them being employed as a historical source. Yet his numerous references to himself, to many named