Alexander Schmemann

1. The Beginning of the Church (28 pages)

Page 8

In the turning point of his life on the road to Damascus, which Paul always described as a call to him “not of men, neither by a man” (Gal. 1:1) but by Christ Himself, he heard the voice of the Master and was converted to Him completely and with finality. Books have been written to explain the conversion scientifically as the result of psychological or neurological factors, or even of the epilepsy from which he is alleged to have suffered. But it is clear that we are dealing with a mystery which science, even with the aid of its most delicate instruments, cannot fully explain. What is important is that every word spoken by Paul that has come down to us shows how his whole being and consciousness were rooted in the person of Christ, and attests his conviction that he had received a special revelation of the Christ. That is why the Church, despite the abundance of opposition and misunderstanding encountered by Paul during his life, does not hesitate to acknowledge him as an apostle equal to the Twelve, and to number him among those whose witness is a cornerstone of the Church.

After his baptism Paul spent three years in Damascus. He then went to Jerusalem, which he was always to regard as the elder Church, the focal point of Christianity. Driven out by the hatred of the Jews, he journeyed back north to Antioch, which was, after Jerusalem, the second most important center of Christianity, and there rose to a leading position as a preacher in the Christian congregation. His lifelong devotion to the “ministry of the Word” led to the founding of a whole network of churches in Asia Minor, Greece, and possibly also in the western part of the Roman Empire.

From the very outset of his ministry Paul was confronted with the whole problem of the position within the Church of converts from paganism, a problem destined to affect the entire future of the Church.
Christianity had taken root in the chief centers of the Roman Empire — Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome — even before he began to preach. As yet, however, the controversy over it remained an intra-Judaic dispute. Thus the Roman historian Suetonius states that the Emperor Claudius banished all Jews from Rome in the year 49 A.D. because the question of “a certain Christ” had provoked outbreaks of disorder among them. Paul, too, began his preaching in Asia Minor by addressing the local Jews. On arriving in a given city, he would go into the local synagogue and, basing his sermon on the Scriptures read there every Sabbath, would begin to preach about Christ. With only a few exceptions, the Jews rejected him and he would then turn to the Gentiles. Paul never doubted that “the word of God should first have been spoken to you. . .” (Acts 13:46) — i.e., to the Jews. The Jewish rejection of Christ was a “continual sorrow” to him. “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (Rom. 9:2f.). But he was equally certain that the Gospels had been addressed to the whole earth for salvation “unto the ends of the world” (Rom. 10:18).

Soon it was no longer a question of individual conversions or exceptional cases; now there were whole Christian communities of Gentiles. Did the ritual prescriptions of the Old Testament, which had remained in force among the Judeo-Christians of Jerusalem, apply to these people? St. Paul answered this question with a flat “No!” Nor did he see the problem in terms of the best method of converting Gentiles; he believed this was an issue involving the very essence of the Christian Good News. First in his Epistle to the Galatians, written in the heat of controversy, and later in a more academic manner in his Epistle to the Romans, he developed his doctrine concerning the relation between law and grace and the freedom of Christians from the law. He was not in the least inclined to deny the importance of the Old Testament. “The law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good” (Rom. 7:12). But the law simply defined evil and sin, it gave no power of salvation from sin.
Even when a man knows what is good and what evil, he is often powerless to crush the latter. “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do” (Rom. 7:19). Man is the slave of sin and he cannot free himself from his servitude. If the setting up of a law or norm — the knowledge of it — included the power to avoid going against it, there would be no need for salvation in Christ. But in giving man law, God reveals to him the abnormality of evil — a sinful violation of His will concerning the world and mankind — and at the same time condemns him; for sinful man, lacking the strength to save himself from sin, lies under judgment. But He who is without sin has taken upon Himself the whole burden of our sins and their condemnation under the law; by His death He has redeemed us. In Christ law died and grace ascended the throne, and through faith in Christ and union with Him in the baptismal death man ceases to be a slave and receives a share in His life.

 

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Schmemann, A History of the Orthodox Church: Table of Contents

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