“Them which say they are apostles, and are not”

Rejection of Paul’s standing as an apostle runs through oral history and extra-canonical tradition, and it is also implied in the text of the New Testament itself. One passage often cited is the message to the church of Ephesus in the book of Revelation,¹ where the author, known as John, delivers a message attributed to Jesus:

2Οἶδα τὰ ἔργα σου, καὶ τὸν κόπον καὶ τὴν ὑπομονήν σου, καὶ ὅτι οὐ δύνῃ βαστάσαι κακούς, καὶ ἐπείρασας τοὺς λέγοντας ἑαυτοὺς ἀποστόλους, καὶ οὐκ εἰσίν, καὶ εὗρες αὐτοὺς ψευδεῖς·

2I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:²

The passage is striking because it is addressed to the church of Ephesus, a community Paul himself founded and the recipient of a letter in his name, which calls him an apostle of Christ. Although the verse names no one, its context leaves room to understand that claims of apostleship in the early churches were not accepted without question.

A letter written in his name has him complain that all Asia had turned away from him, including those who had once supported him.³ That coincidence has led some modern scholars to reassess Paul’s relationship with the churches of Asia, including the possibility that he was among those tested and rejected as a false apostle by the very community he had formed.

Some modern interpreters within Christian apologetics try to rule out that possibility by stressing that the statement in Revelation is plural and unspecific. The “false apostles,” they argue, could refer to other figures who appeared after the apostolic age. They add that if the Ephesian church ever rejected false teaching, it was the fruit of Paul’s own original instruction, which had built up its faith.

That is a petitio principii: Paul’s authority is assumed to credit him with the church’s discernment. That interpretation denies that the rebuke in Revelation carries any implication for Paul. It ignores the historical reality that the early church did not agree on accepting anyone’s authority as an apostle, least of all a figure outside the circle of ḥawāriyyūn known directly to ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Historians and textual scholars such as Robert Eisenman,⁴ James D. Tabor⁵ and Elaine Pagels⁶ have proposed that Revelation was written in a context of internal tension in the early church, above all between the original disciples and the outside influence that began to seep in through Paul’s movement. They read the rejection of false apostles in the text as an allusion to those who brought teaching that departed from the original tradition inherited by the disciples of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam.

Eisenman stresses that the movement of the disciples centered on James had firm reason to question Paul’s “apostleship”. Pagels argues that the author of Revelation opposed practices that permitted eating food offered to idols and mixing with Roman custom, two matters that connect to the flexibility of Paul’s teaching in his letters.⁷ Although Paul is never named, suspicion of apostolic authority from outside the circle of the ḥawāriyyūn is plain, and it shows that rejection of Paul came from within the early texts of the church as well as from outside them.

A liar by his own account

Paul also had a reputation as a liar. He himself stated that his words should be accepted even when recognized as a lie. In his letter to the Romans he admits:

7εἰ δὲ ἡ ἀλήθεια τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ ψεύσματι ἐπερίσσευσεν εἰς τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, τί ἔτι κἀγὼ ὡς ἁμαρτωλὸς κρίνομαι,

7For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?⁸

The verse shows Paul’s readiness to use tactics that might be judged dishonest to reach his goal. The context makes plain that, for the spread and survival of his teaching, Paul was willing to lie on the ground that “good” could be achieved by it. The same appears in his rule of becoming “all things to all men”, which Count·III sets out.⁹

Paul was known, too, as a cunning man full of guile. He said so himself:

16ἔστω δέ, ἐγὼ οὐ κατεβάρησα ὑμᾶς· ἀλλὰ ὑπάρχων πανοῦργος δόλῳ ὑμᾶς ἔλαβον.

16But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.¹⁰

Without shame or concealment, Paul also stated:

18τί γάρ; πλὴν ὅτι παντὶ τρόπῳ, εἴτε προφάσει εἴτε ἀληθείᾳ, Χριστὸς καταγγέλλεται, καὶ ἐν τούτῳ χαίρω· ἀλλὰ καὶ χαρήσομαι,

18What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.¹¹

So it is no surprise that Paul was fiercely opposed by the disciples, so much so that he grumbled when he recalled it. He answered that opposition by remaking his message for each audience he met, and the remaking is the third count against him, set out in Count·III.¹²

1. The book of Revelation belongs to the apocalyptic genre and is composed as symbolic vision. It is no linear historical record, but carries prophetic symbolism that reflects conflict within the early church. See Elaine Pagels, Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation (Viking, 2012), pp. 5ff. ↩
2. Revelation 2:2 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
3. 2 Timothy 1:15. ↩
4. Robert Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus (Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 626–628. ↩
5. James D. Tabor, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle Transformed Christianity (Simon & Schuster, 2012). ↩
6. Elaine Pagels, op. cit., pp. 25–53. ↩
7. ibid., p. 30. Pagels states that John condemns figures who permitted ritual compromise with the pagan world. ↩
8. Romans 3:7 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
9. 1 Corinthians 9:22. ↩
10. 2 Corinthians 12:16 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
11. Philippians 1:18 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
12. See the accounts of opposition to Paul in Galatians 2:11–14 and, in a letter written in his name, 2 Timothy 1:15, 4:9–16. ↩