When Paul talks about his Gospel, he means his teaching and preaching; he doesn’t mean the four Gospels. In all cases, when the apostle was preaching and writing his epistles, none of the Gospels was written yet. He says that people are saved through his Gospel, and this means that his Gospel contains the base of what the Lord taught and did. He explains in the beginning of his first epistle to the Corinthians, and in other occasions, that the Gospel is preaching the death of the Lord and his Resurrection and that all other words lead or come from Crucifixion and Resurrection.
His expression “I passed on to you what I received” probably doesn’t mean that he has received directly from the Lord the information concerning his death and Resurrection. He is also not talking about the tradition he inherited from the apostles after coming back from the land of the Arabs to Jerusalem. He probably took the main events from Ananias, the head of the Christian community in Damascus, before baptizing him after the Lord appeared to Paul while he was going to Damascus to persecute the Christians.
In this chapter, preaching is summarized by three words: Christ died, was buried and rose. The expression “according to the scriptures” is not a reference to the four Gospels but it means “according to the books of the Prophets”.
The appearance of the Lord to Cephas, i.e. Peter, is not clearly mentioned in the four Gospels; however, the two disciples of Emmaus said, quoting the twelve disciples, that the Lord has appeared to Simon (Luke 24: 34). Then, John the Evangelist says that the Lord appeared Simon in Galilee (21: 7). Perhaps Paul is referring to this. As for the appearing to 500 brothers in Galilee, this must mean a crowd of believers in Jesus.
As for appearing to James, this is mentioned in the Apocryphal Gospel of James. And when he says that he appeared to the twelve, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they were all together at once.
“He appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born”, i.e. to a child with an early birth. He is considering himself the least among everyone because he has persecuted the Church of God excessively (Acts 3: 3, Galatians 1: 13 and Philippians 3: 6). However, he was saved though the grace that was poured on him as it was poured on those that came before him. However, the apostle’s humility didn’t prevent him from feeling that he has done more than all of them concerning preaching (2Corinthians 11: 23). Nevertheless, he was convinced that his work came from the grace.
The comparison he did between himself and the apostles was mentioned here twenty years after Resurrection. However, after this date, they all struggled a lot and many of them died as martyrs and we have the Epistles of Peter, James, John, the non-Iscariot Judas, and the Gospels. Whatever the fact of this comparison was, Paul’s depth still attracts us until this day, and a lot of our fathers took their thoughts from his, and his Epistles are the ones read most of the days of the year. Our vision of Christ, of his nature, love and acts must have the same dimensions of Paul’s vision so that we obtain a big love towards Jesus.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “إنجيل بولس” –Raiati 36- 04.09.2011
