Christine I have some more to offer:
St. Paul, the inventor of the new Christian
religion.
Shortly after the execution of the aspirant-Messiah, a certain Shaul, a Hebrew
who was born and grew up in Anatolia, and was accustomed to living together
with heathens, and who would rather compromise with the non- circumcised
than clash with them, perceived the insane dangerousness of the traditional and
radical interpretation that Essenes and Zealots put upon the Messianic
prophecies; according to them direct conflict with the enormous power of
Rome and her Hebrew footmen (the Sadducean caste and the Herodian family)
would lead to victory because of the support of Yahweh himself.
Shaul, whom we call St. Paul, was fully aware of the possibility that the
Romans might soon have enough of this small but indomitable province
of their empire, and might decide to have done with it.
Even the Sadducees shared that opinion, since they were in a very comfortable
position: protected by the Romans, as well as being rich and having great
influence and prestige in Judean society. We have already quoted the words of
the High Priest who spoke of his fear for the possible reaction of the Romans
against Jewish fundamentalism. He was right: what the Sadducees and Paul and
the Pharisees were afraid of, came literally true when, in the year 70, the
Romans really decided to have done with Judea. They massacred thousands
and thousands of Jews, destroyed Jerusalem and sacked the temple and put it
to the torch.
At first, sharing the views of the Hebrew conservatives, Shaul the Pharisee was
an obstinate persecutor of the dangerous adherents of the Messianic sects (alias
the Christians; please note that the word "christian" is simply the translation into
Greek of the Hebrew word "messianic"); then, as time passed, he was to realise
that this way the national-religious fanaticism of the Essene and Zealotic sects
would not dampen. Unfortunately even nowadays we see that there is no
weapon that can get the better of ethnic-religious fundamentalism.
Therefore Shaul convinced himself that opposing arms to ethnic-religious purity
is of no use; you only risk getting the opposite effect; ideas must be fought with
ideas. In fact ethnic-religious fanaticism satisfies a psychological need that is
closely connected with unconscious feelings of identity and popular pride; the
only thing which can compete with that is another psychological image, another
idea tailored to the need to satisfy people's unconscious needs, to give them an
identity and a self-respect that is more than the tribal feeling of being part of a
given group.
Well then, the only way to fight the dangerous messianic hope of Israel's
national-religious salvation was to create a new messianic hope of salvation, still
greater, still more responsive to the psychological needs of the people: the idea
of a universal spiritual salvation, of a Messiah who was not to rescue the small
house of Israel but all of mankind, especially the poor, the humble, the
oppressed, the weak, the sick, the suffering, from their subjection to evil.
Thus Shaul invented the new image of the Messiah (fictitious but
winning): Jesus Christ the risen from the dead. He composed this image
by grafting onto the remains of the old Messiah (real but politically
unsuccessful), who continued to stir up the ardour and the hope of his
irreducible followers, the character of the oriental spiritual Saviours, like
the Greek Soter, the Persian Saoshyant, and the Indian Buddha.
It was the most genial theological composition ever put into practice from the
time that history began. It was the syncretistic meeting of a number of religious
components: Hebrew, Egyptian, Hellenic, Persian, and Indian. Destined to
become the spiritual guide to the subsequent development of all the western
civilisation. It was really able to knock down the pagan Roman Empire (unlike
its historical counterpart).
Not that Shaul converted himself on his way to Damascus, but the
Christian idea revealed a new dimension, not just right for the future of
Israel, but for the future of all of mankind.
When this theological and ideological revision was made, it elicited much more
popular response than the original faith in the aspiring Messiah of Israel and his
followers; and the Hebrew traditionalists (devoted to their national-religious
idea) were seen as an obstacle to the development of the new supra-national
idea. Not this alone, but the image of the historical aspiring Messiah of the Jews
and his patriotic immolation became an obstacle to the image of the universal
Messiah, the apolitical one, solely spiritual, who promised salvation in the
kingdom of Heaven, not on earth.
The new Christians were also persecuted by the Romans because they could
not forget that the original Messiah was a dangerous martyr of the liberation
movement, who could even infect other subject nations of their Empire with his
ideas.
That is why the Evangelists were absolutely compelled to distance
themselves from the Jews and to turn the Romans' responsibility into the
responsibility of the Jews.
That is why the Gospel stories are filled with tricks, with the purpose of
readjusting the image of the Messiah to the new theology.
That is how the Gospels were conceived and written. |
