But Paul insists that you need hierarchy and organization and structure to spread the message effectively. You need bishops and deacons and churches and formal procedures. So he's building churches all around the Roman Empire. He's creating an organizational structure. He's establishing protocols. This is not spiritual teaching. This is institution building.
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors. But primitive Christianity had organic structure. Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
The Pistis Sophia, hints at the perilous journey of the soul through realms of judgement and false lights. So, yeah I think it's literal.
Okay, will look into it in time.
By convincing the soul that it has failed, that it must return to correct its mistakes, the archons ensure the cycle of reincarnation never ends.
I can't logically conclude that. 100% of our evidence is from those who didn't stay with the light, so in all those cases the person avoids a cycle of reincarnation. As for the rest we can't use the light evidence to determine their fates because they don't return or provide evidence; we can only use general data about reincarnation. But I don't know that it's that important; verifiable facts are important.
Yes, Lucifer is also a good name. I'm just not buying the evidence that he has any creative power.
Now, I've been exploring my hesitant suggestion yesterday, and it might work, namely that the righteous might get to make a free choice as described in Romans 14. Those whose conscience doesn't want a body of flesh might, in the apokatastasis, get the right not to carry one, while those whose conscience isn't troubled might get the right to carry one, and each is fully convinced in his own conscience and neither deprecates the other. I'm still exploring whether that's a useful theology otherwise, but in this case it really breaks down the wall between traditional and gnostic views of the corruption of the present universe because everyone can get what they want.
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors
I understand. Since I will be speaking about Paul here I'm including u/Thisisnotanexit But, to me Paul or Saul of Taurus was not a real person. Or if it was could have been many individuals (assets). To me Paul is nothing more than an intelligence asset working on behalf of Roman imperial interests to neutralize the most dangerous threat the empire had ever faced, Jewish fanaticism. Something that the CIA & Mossad institution at that time would create/invent. That's what they do today 2,000 years later, think of it as the MKUltra program. What was the Roman empire then is the American (including Great Britain & Israel) empire today. Pax Romana became Pax Americana. That's why you have the Fasces symbol in the U.S. Congress. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Christianity did not spread because Jesus lived long enough to build it. It spread because Paul reinterpreted him for an empire. What most believers never examine is how theology, power, and historical context quietly reshaped Jesus's message after his death. What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus. And that gap between the man and the myth, that distance between the teacher and the religion built in his name tells us something crucial about how power works, about how empires operate, about how ideas get transformed when they become useful to those in control. Initially it could have been someone called Saul who was born in Taurus. But, in order to understand how this works, you need to understand Roman history and politics. And you need to understand the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. And in fact, at this time in history, there were individuals who possess all three sets of knowledge. They were called Hellenists in the Roman Empire. If you were a Hellenist Jew, meaning you grew up with Greek education in a Roman context, you had access to all three major knowledge systems, the Hebrew Bible, Greek philosophy, and Roman history. And someone who fits this description was Saul from Taurus.
I believe you are familiar with Acts and the feud between James the Just and Paul. So I will skip that part. But his is how the story of Paul ends. He's in Rome. He can do whatever he wants. He can preach whatever he wants and no one can touch him. So who is this man? How does he have this power? He was in Jerusalem where a mob tried to kill him. Roman soldiers rescued him. He went to Rome and he told the Jewish leaders there, don't challenge me. And they backed down. Some even converted to his version of Christianity. Who is Paul really? So let's step back and look at all the questions in the story of Paul that don't make sense if we accept the official Christian narrative. First question, who is this guy? He has tremendous power and wealth. He has direct access to Roman authority at the highest levels. This is not normal for a religious preacher. This is someone with elite connections. Reminds me of someone recently in the news, Jefferey Epstein. Who also had elite connections and no one could touch him until they couldn't suppress the truth any longer. Then Epstein vanished, I know the official story says he committed suicide.
The other thing I find fascinating about the Paul story, Paul didn't quote Jesus. You would think that if Jesus was so important to Paul that Paul would constantly quote Jesus. He would reference Jesus's teachings. He would tell stories about what Jesus said and did. But Paul rarely quotes Jesus. Jesus's teachings, Jesus's sayings, Jesus's parables. Paul doesn't use them. Why not? If you had a vision of the founder of your religion, wouldn't you want to know everything he taught? Wouldn't you study his words carefully? But Paul doesn't seem interested in what Jesus actually said. And more importantly, the message that Paul preaches is fundamentally different from what Jesus taught. Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe. You can do as much good as you want, but if you don't believe in Jesus as a son of God who died for your sins, you'll be damned to hell. So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching. This goes completely against the teachings of Jesus who said, "The kingdom of God is open to everyone who does good.". Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path. Do what's right. Love your neighbor. That's enough.
Another thing that bothers me, why is Paul so focused on organization? The heart of religion should be spiritual truth, spiritual experience, direct connection with the divine. But Paul doesn't really care about that. He cares about structure. He cares about building churches. He cares about appointing bishops and deacons. He cares about establishing procedures for who's in charge and how decisions are made and how to handle internal disputes. This is not spirituality. This is institution building. This is creating a power structure. why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews? And why do the Romans always save him? In every confrontation, the pattern is the same. Jews accuse Paul. Romans protect Paul. Jews try to hurt Paul. Romans rescue Paul over and over. If Paul were just a religious teacher who happened to be be a Roman citizen, you might see this once, maybe twice, but it's a consistent pattern throughout his entire career. The Romans are always there to protect him. Always. That suggests something more than coincidence. That suggests coordination. To be fair, Christians do have an explanation. The Christian explanation is that Paul was part of God's divine plan. Jesus brought spiritual truth into the world. Jesus taught the way of salvation. But it was Paul who created the structure and organization that allowed Christianity to spread throughout the world. I'm not buying it, but nevertheless it is an explanation.
I'm going to make an analogy here with the McDonalds franchise, because I think could highlight something important. In the 1950s, McDonald's was one restaurant in California run by the McDonalds brothers. They had great hamburgers. They had a good system, but it was just one location. Then a man named Ray Kroc visited the restaurant and he saw the potential. He said to the brothers, "Let me scale this out. Let me create a franchise model. Let me convince other people to open McDonald's restaurants all across America and eventually the world.". And the brother said, "Okay.". And Ray Kroc became one of the greatest salesman in history. He drove everywhere. He held meetings. He convinced people. And because Ray Kroc was such an effective salesman, McDonald's became the largest restaurant empire in the world. The Christian narrative says it's the same with Paul. Jesus was a founder who had the true message. But Paul was a business manager who created the system that allow the message to spread. Jesus taught spiritual truth. Paul built an organization that could spread that truth to millions of people across the entire Roman Empire and eventually across the entire world. But here's a problem with this analogy. Jesus was not selling hamburgers. In fact, Jesus hated hamburgers. Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly. So even though the Christian explanation is that Paul was Jesus's business manager, the problem is Jesus didn't want a business manager. Jesus believed that institutionalizing spirituality destroys it. Each person has to discover truth for themselves to their own inner journey.
What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus.
So say many. All agree on following Jesus, then all diverge on what that means. The grammaticohistorical Jesus is the real Jesus, anything else is just imagination.
Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe.
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21): Yes, Jesus taught the kingdom within.
"Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matt. 23:23): Yes, Jesus taught works.
"Thy faith hath saved thee" (Luke 7:50, 18:42): Jesus also taught faith.
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9): Yes, Paul taught faith.
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17): Paul also taught the kingdom within.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12): Paul also taught works.
I guess I'm not seeing the dichotomy. There is a difficulty for those who think messages of faith and works are in contradiction, but classical theology resolved the tension between James and Paul long ago.
So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching.
That's not Paul, and Christians shouldn't teach it. Paul taught that they are judged innocent or guilty by the law found in their own hearts, Rom. 2:13-16, answering this exact objection in its original terms. Again, no dichotomy seen.
Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path.
Sorry, Dot: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). Nothing about following paths or ways turns up, but "I am the way" (John 14:6) and "Follow me" (18 times, including John 21:19). See, those are history texts that people accept about what he actually taught and they speak for themselves, and when you use their language to say something else it invites a question as to what is meant. On structure, I'll repeat my findings:
Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews?
Same reason Peter, John, and the rest got in trouble with "the Jews" before and after Paul's activity. Those Jews who didn't believe Jesus didn't believe any of his apostles.
Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly.
Now you're getting to the meat! Some McDonald's locations sell sludge where the McDonalds had sold high-quality beef. And some blame could be laid on Kroc for that. But in this analogy, the blame falls much more on a long train of deviations from Jesus, historically documented in all 21 centuries since. Jesus on earth did appoint managers, he gave different offices to the apostles and also had many front men and sales workers to prepare some of his appearances. Paul says that his visions of Jesus were of the same kind and appeals to them as proof that Jesus did want him as a manager (not of an organization but of an organism, the living bride). The test of that vision is in what Paul did, and historically what he did was not problematic on the fronts you describe when compared to the Medicis, say, as the first example to come to mind.
So I've read it all but I don't see it as a difference between Jesus and the received Paul figure. I see it as a difference between Jesus and churchianity, from the popes on down. I'm all for constructive criticism of Christianity and restoration of the true historical Jesus, because it never lets me down and it explains exactly when and where I run with or against the institutional churches.
Paul also taught works There is a difficulty for those who think messages of faith and works are in contradiction, but classical theology resolved the tension between James and Paul long ago.
It wasn't only James the Just. u/Thisisnotanexit And the issue was beyond "tension". But, of course you're free to believe anything you want to believe. IMO, a large number of jews in Jerusalem wanted to kill Paul for his teachings. Which were different than Jesus's teachings. Maybe you're not seeing the dichotomy, but I do. Maybe because I'm looking at the outcome in a different way than you do. So, with that in mind allow me to look at what Paul actually teaches and how each of his "innovations" directly undermines one of these three pillars of Jewish fanaticism. First pillar, purity. Purity means absolute obedience to the law of Moses. Purity means circumcision. Purity means dietary restrictions. Purity means Sabbath observance. Purity means not associating with Gentiles. Purity means indulging only marrying within the faith. But what does Paul say? Paul says circumcision doesn't matter. You don't need to be circumcised to be part of God's people. The law of Moses doesn't matter. What matters is faith in Jesus. The external signs don't matter. What matters is the inner belief. Now, why is circumcision such a big deal? jews know why. So many Jews simply stayed separate from mainstream civic life. This maintained Jewish distinctiveness, but it also isolated Jews from the networks of power and commerce and culture. Paul says, "You don't need to be circumcised.". And if you only be circumcised, then suddenly you can participate in gymnasium culture. You can network with Greeks and Romans. You can integrate into civic life. You're no longer visibly marked as separate. So Paul's message breaks down the barrier of purity. It makes assimilation possible. It allows Jews to become Roman while still claiming to maintain their faith.
Second pillar, persecution complex. Jews believe they're persecuted because they're God's chosen people. The world hates them for their righteousness. This creates intense group solidarity, us against the world. But Paul says, you're not being persecuted because you're righteous. You're being persecuted because you're not Roman citizens. Look at me. I'm a Roman citizen. And the Romans protect me. They don't persecute me. I can preach anything I want and no one touches me. So the solution isn't to resist Rome. The solution is to become Roman, get citizenship, participate in the system, then you have legal protection. Then you can practice your religion freely. The Romans don't care what you believe as long as you don't rebel. Paul's own life story becomes proof of this argument. He was persecuted by Jews, not by Romans. Romans saved him. Romans protected him. Romans gave him safe passage to Rome to appeal to the emperor.
Third pillar, the coming of the Messiah. Jews believe the Messiah will be a warrior king who will lead a military revolt against Rome and establish God's kingdom through violent conquest. But Paul says the Messiah has already come. He was Jesus. And Jesus didn't come to lead a military revolt. Jesus came to teach a message of love and forgiveness and spiritual transformation. Jesus had nothing against the Roman Empire. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesars's.". Jesus told people to turn the other cheek. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers.". So if the Messiah already came and his message was peace, not war, then waiting for a military messiah is foolish. That's not the plan. The plan is inner transformation, spiritual salvation, not political revolution.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, like I said you're free to believe anything you want. But, at least acknowledge this is a very radical view about Paul you haven't heard before. That he is a spy working for the Roman empire. Why don't you look at the present. Today assimilated jews are disrespected just as much as goyim, if not more. Just ask any assimilated jew. Jews still believe they're persecuted because they're God's chosen people. And if say otherwise you're an antisemite, even if you are a jew. And how about Jewish fanaticism, just look at Chabad Lubavitch. Every day they're praying for the coming of the Moshiach. And then look at things from the Roman empire & Paul perspective. If they deal with these three things, then fanaticism disappears. If purity doesn't matter, then you can assimilate. If Roman citizenship protects you, then you don't need to resist. If the Messiah already came with a message of peace, then you're not waiting for a warrior king to lead you into battle. The theological framework completely neutralizes the political threat. This is Roman propaganda designed to make you weak, to make you surrender, to make you abandon the faith. But Paul's message wasn't targeted at fanatical Jews. They were still a minority. Paul's message was targeted at diaspora Jews like himself. Jews who were stuck between two worlds. Jews who had Greek fathers and Jewish mothers. Jews who wanted to participate in Roman society but felt guilt about compromising their traditions. Jews who were tired of being outsiders who wanted to belong. For these people, Paul's message was liberating. You can be Roman and Jewish. You can participate in civic life and still worship the God of Abraham.
IMO, Paul was cleaver. And I also believe he genuinely believed in his mission. His mission was to save his people. And from his perspective, the path the fanatics were taking led to destruction. Rebelling against Rome was suicide. Rome was the most powerful military force in world history. You cannot defeat them through armed resistance. All you do is get yourselves killed. If you want to survive, if you want to preserve Jewish life and culture, you have to adapt. You have to make compromises. You have to work within the Roman system, not against it. And look, there are advantages to Roman civilization. You can become prosperous. You can be educated. You can have security and stability. Roman peace brings benefits if you're willing to participate. So Paul's mission was assimilation but not assimilation that destroys Jewish identity. Assimilation that preserves a modified version of Jewish identity that's compatible with Roman power. In his own mind, Paul was a savior. He was saving the Jewish people from their own suicidal fanaticism. The irony is that to do this, he had to radically transform what it meant to be Jewish. He had to create a new religion that kept some Jewish elements but abandoned others. He had to make Judaism acceptable to Rome. And whether Paul realized or not, whether he intended it or not, he was doing exactly what Roman imperial interests required. And Romans continued with the Paul Project long after Saul of Taurus's death. If something works why fix it?
Yes, Jesus and Paul cut against much tradition, and aligned with much other tradition, just as the NT says.
Purity: Tradition understood there was natural law for all people (the Ten Commandments, the laws of Noah) and there were Mosaic laws specifically for the tribe of Jews (e.g. circumcision and kashrut and antimiscegentation). Tradition also admittedly added to Moses with commands about not associating with Gentiles (as well as candle-lighting, keeping Purim, and other things added at this time). Jesus taught and kept Mosaic purity and taught that the disciples' righteousness should exceed that of the Pharisees (emphasizing that it cannot be done by mere human effort). Paul said very specifically how he applied these first two bodies of law (Noah and Moses) and how he didn't always follow the third body (oral tradition). "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law" (1 Cor. 9:20-21). This is standard rabbinical paradox, meaning two senses apply. He is under the law to (of) Christ and so he can operate "as" under the law; and he is also free from all human law (19) so he can operate "as" without law. This is the meaning of neither circumcision nor uncircumcision mattering, it's the teaching of Christian liberty to judge all things. When Paul defended himself before the Romans, according to Luke, he claimed not to have offended the law of Moses in the slightest (Acts 22:3, 24:14, 25:8); he also prepared for this, at the counsel of representatives of myriads of Torah-observant Messianic Jews, by paying for sacrifices to be offered, which they hoped would prove "that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law" (Acts 21:24). So it's not open-and-shut to say that, even though Paul (and the whole Jerusalem Council of Acts 15) agreed on not putting laws of Moses forcibly upon Gentiles, he thereby had anything against the law; in fact, to say so agrees with his Jewish accusers, who also persecuted all the other proto-Christians before Paul. I showed you that Paul preaching faith in Jesus was the same as Jesus preaching it. But Paul never preached to Jews not to circumcise their children to gain Greco-Roman networking power; the Hellenists did that, but Paul aligned with the Torah-observant ("many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law", 21:20). There was never a message of allowing Jews to become Roman and not Jewish, it wasn't ever a Jewish concept.
Persecution: I wouldn't describe this as a complex in the first place; it was more, unique role requires special resignation about suffering. Paul (who was tried and executed by Rome) just didn't preach a message of Romanism saving anyone, nor did he do anything to distract from Jesus's message of crossbearing, but perpetuated it. Under house arrest by Rome for two years, he didn't preach citizenship; he preached salvation of God to Jew and Gentile, the kingdom of God, and the lordship of Jesus Christ (Acts 28:28-31). I don't see evidence for your idea that he taught Hellenism. Now, Philo of Alexandria taught Hellenism, but I know of no historical linkage to Saul of Tarsus. (Greek Philo and his Hebrew name Yedidyah mean "beloved"; Latin Paulus means "small".)
Messianism: Have looked into this recently and can say, the development of messianism in the centuries before Jesus was not monolithic. Daniel, Enoch, the apocrypha, and the Mishna make clear that there were tensions among many messianic pictures floating in the culture. He might arise suddenly or be born in Israel and quietly grow up Jewish; he might be supernatural or very human; he might destroy the evil empire or he might be utterly cut off by them; he might suffer for his people or he might deliver them victoriously. There was no single notion of warrior-king "only" at this time (it was only much later that Jews pushing back against Christians played that side up and played the suffering side down). For instance, Ps. 110, quoted so often in Jesus's time, emphasized both victory, and a repose where the Messiah sits patiently at God's righthand until the time comes for him to demonstrate peace by drinking freely from the brook. It was a deliberate paradoxical teaching and the people who were honest admitted that, which is why many couldn't determine if Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus said he would bring a sword at the right time, and John saw the same, but that his immediate purpose was to build a community founded on Peter's confession of the Messiah. His clever teachings were more ambiguous about Rome than people think: render Caesar's image to Caesar, but man is God's image and cannot be rendered to Caesar; and turning another cheek to a striker publicly shames the striker for his injustice just as going the second mile shames the Roman soldier who demands the first one under color of law. Again, both Paul and Jesus preach the same Messiah, the epitome of love who will yet crush rebellion at the right time and deliver all creation in a final reconciliation.
this is a very radical view about Paul you haven't heard before. That he is a spy working for the Roman empire.
Parts I haven't heard, yes. But that's because the evidence doesn't point most people there. How far could I go with it? Perhaps Paul's citizenship led him to desire a chief gatekeeper position in the Messianic sect, but it didn't make good Roman citizens in his day because he and the other apostles led many myriads to go to martyrdom rejecting the Roman gods. Rome hated Jews and Christians equally for the same reason, as Tacitus shows. So is he just infiltrating to remove a message of gnosis that would take primitive Christianity in another direction? That appears plain from his calling it pseudognosis, but it doesn't mean his track is Roman (in fact Rom. 16 shows how big the Roman church was before he ever arrived, and it just kept getting more a thorn in Rome's side). So can we find a message of gnosis that was suppressed? A little bit, but it wasn't taught by Jesus or any apostle as such. They didn't have a problem with gnosis, they had a problem with apostasy (separatism, standing against), as John says. It's just that gnostics so often formed separatist schools; those who didn't had schools that were accepted and integrated, notably Montanus. And it was centuries before a long series of compromises allowed the Christian system to be coopted by Rome, so Paul's contributions to offer concessions to Gentiles (never to Jews) were only one of many steps in that direction.
You do offer a rationale that current political Judaism would be appealed to by a Hellenizing message. As one who's studied the current situation, I take a different approach, going back to Jesus's words that the Pharisee types should do even more than they do. They should strive for Mosaic purity so much more that they realize it can't be done except supernaturally (as Jesus and gnostics both agree). They should be willing so much more to suffer that they risk their comfort zone of associations with other Jews and begin to step out of their entire safety net, as so many Messianic Jews have done who have been disowned by family and culture alike. They should be so much more demanding of "Moshiach Now!" that they bring him into their hearts where he's always wanted to reign the most. That is their salvation within their own system much more than Hellenization could ever be. Yes, Philo's message is still a draw for many secular Jews today, but it's not real Judaism and it's not their destiny. They should become more risky and unpredictable because Jesus's followers are known for turning the world upside down, and that's a threat to the state that can never be undone. Resistance is futile: statism will be assimilated. Not by dead organization, but by a living organism.
Jews who had Greek fathers and Jewish mothers.
Paul ensured one such was circumcised, Timothy; he never preached Hellenism. It was only the Jerusalem Council en masse that continued Judaism by affirming that there was no pressure on Gentiles to be proselytized, or not to be.
I will grant that Rom. 13 preaches acceptance of the powers that be (Jewish or Gentile), insofar as conscience permits, while Peter and John made the conscience factor much more explicit in Acts 4-5. But even in Rom. 13 Paul appeals back to Jesus's statement of rendering unto Caesar, which as I pointed out creates a perfect delineation: powers have the right to claim taxes but not the right to claim your conscience, which is God's possession. Timothy Baldwin points out in detail that this passage is not a suicide pact with Rome but a recognition that peaceful civil disobedience is limited to true appeals to conscience. So even there I don't see that Paul's demarcation was different from Jesus's cagey one. You note "Jesus had nothing against the Roman Empire", but then you appear to fault Paul for having nothing against the Empire either.
So it's a very interesting case, and I'd be happy to look at any neglected aspects. I'm not seeing a historical narrative in which Paul's contribution to Christianity is the problem, or in which some other contribution was unduly silenced. The judgment against any gnostic teaching was always local over the entire gnostic period and not targeted against a gnostic position in general; and Christians accepted many texts on gnosis that were nonbelligerent, such as the wonderful Odes of Solomon, the Shepherd of Hermas, of course the Gospel of Thomas, etc. The only reason these faded is that they didn't have the staying power that Christians saw in the books that they eventually approved as canonical. I have every respect for your proposal that there is more to look at, but when it comes to your motivation narrative for Paul it sounds like you're just assuming Philo's motives onto him even though they don't appear in the Pauline corpus. Sure there were many Hellenists in the Philo school, many Alexandrians, but they were strongly quashed from 66 on, and they were only later represented by Athenians who carried the Hellenist trend in their place, i.e. Athenagoras and Clement. The Alexandrian school was always a distinct movement from the Jerusalem and Rome movements in Christianity. So I just continue not to see a fit of your narrative to the facts about Philo and Paul, even granting the best hypotheticals to you.
Institutionalization took 300 years and has many contributors. But primitive Christianity had organic structure. Jesus says have deacons, Matt. 20:26, 23:11; the Twelve appointed servants with this function, Acts 6:1-6 (while Saul was still threatening murderously). The Eleven count themselves bishops and establish the appointment of new ones, Acts 1:20; Peter also affirms Jesus as bishop, 1 Peter 2:25. Jesus built a church, Matt. 16:18, 18:17; the apostles affirmed it, Acts 2:47, etc.; and Luke calls the structure plural churches of the brothers right at the time Saul gets saved, Acts 9:31; and John and Jesus confirm this plural structure repeatedly in Rev. 1-3 and 22. Procedure is fluid but I don't see a special difference between Paul being procedural and any others; the biggest procedure appears to be the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15, where Paul and many other church leaders all had equal standing. So I can be anti-institutionalism while still affirming that Jesus wanted a little free organic structure.
Okay, will look into it in time.
I can't logically conclude that. 100% of our evidence is from those who didn't stay with the light, so in all those cases the person avoids a cycle of reincarnation. As for the rest we can't use the light evidence to determine their fates because they don't return or provide evidence; we can only use general data about reincarnation. But I don't know that it's that important; verifiable facts are important.
Yes, Lucifer is also a good name. I'm just not buying the evidence that he has any creative power.
Now, I've been exploring my hesitant suggestion yesterday, and it might work, namely that the righteous might get to make a free choice as described in Romans 14. Those whose conscience doesn't want a body of flesh might, in the apokatastasis, get the right not to carry one, while those whose conscience isn't troubled might get the right to carry one, and each is fully convinced in his own conscience and neither deprecates the other. I'm still exploring whether that's a useful theology otherwise, but in this case it really breaks down the wall between traditional and gnostic views of the corruption of the present universe because everyone can get what they want.
I understand. Since I will be speaking about Paul here I'm including u/Thisisnotanexit But, to me Paul or Saul of Taurus was not a real person. Or if it was could have been many individuals (assets). To me Paul is nothing more than an intelligence asset working on behalf of Roman imperial interests to neutralize the most dangerous threat the empire had ever faced, Jewish fanaticism. Something that the CIA & Mossad institution at that time would create/invent. That's what they do today 2,000 years later, think of it as the MKUltra program. What was the Roman empire then is the American (including Great Britain & Israel) empire today. Pax Romana became Pax Americana. That's why you have the Fasces symbol in the U.S. Congress. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Christianity did not spread because Jesus lived long enough to build it. It spread because Paul reinterpreted him for an empire. What most believers never examine is how theology, power, and historical context quietly reshaped Jesus's message after his death. What Jesus believed and taught is fundamentally different from what Christianity teaches us about Jesus. And that gap between the man and the myth, that distance between the teacher and the religion built in his name tells us something crucial about how power works, about how empires operate, about how ideas get transformed when they become useful to those in control. Initially it could have been someone called Saul who was born in Taurus. But, in order to understand how this works, you need to understand Roman history and politics. And you need to understand the Hebrew Bible and Jewish tradition. And in fact, at this time in history, there were individuals who possess all three sets of knowledge. They were called Hellenists in the Roman Empire. If you were a Hellenist Jew, meaning you grew up with Greek education in a Roman context, you had access to all three major knowledge systems, the Hebrew Bible, Greek philosophy, and Roman history. And someone who fits this description was Saul from Taurus.
I believe you are familiar with Acts and the feud between James the Just and Paul. So I will skip that part. But his is how the story of Paul ends. He's in Rome. He can do whatever he wants. He can preach whatever he wants and no one can touch him. So who is this man? How does he have this power? He was in Jerusalem where a mob tried to kill him. Roman soldiers rescued him. He went to Rome and he told the Jewish leaders there, don't challenge me. And they backed down. Some even converted to his version of Christianity. Who is Paul really? So let's step back and look at all the questions in the story of Paul that don't make sense if we accept the official Christian narrative. First question, who is this guy? He has tremendous power and wealth. He has direct access to Roman authority at the highest levels. This is not normal for a religious preacher. This is someone with elite connections. Reminds me of someone recently in the news, Jefferey Epstein. Who also had elite connections and no one could touch him until they couldn't suppress the truth any longer. Then Epstein vanished, I know the official story says he committed suicide.
The other thing I find fascinating about the Paul story, Paul didn't quote Jesus. You would think that if Jesus was so important to Paul that Paul would constantly quote Jesus. He would reference Jesus's teachings. He would tell stories about what Jesus said and did. But Paul rarely quotes Jesus. Jesus's teachings, Jesus's sayings, Jesus's parables. Paul doesn't use them. Why not? If you had a vision of the founder of your religion, wouldn't you want to know everything he taught? Wouldn't you study his words carefully? But Paul doesn't seem interested in what Jesus actually said. And more importantly, the message that Paul preaches is fundamentally different from what Jesus taught. Jesus believed the kingdom of God is within us. Through generosity, through mercy, through good works, we can achieve salvation. Paul teaches it's belief in Jesus that matters. Only believe. You can do as much good as you want, but if you don't believe in Jesus as a son of God who died for your sins, you'll be damned to hell. So all those Buddhists, all those Hindus, all those doists who are living compassionate lives, helping others, seek enlightenment, too bad. They're going to burn in hell forever because they don't believe the specific Christian doctrine that Paul is teaching. This goes completely against the teachings of Jesus who said, "The kingdom of God is open to everyone who does good.". Jesus never said you have to believe in me specifically. He said follow the path. Do what's right. Love your neighbor. That's enough.
Another thing that bothers me, why is Paul so focused on organization? The heart of religion should be spiritual truth, spiritual experience, direct connection with the divine. But Paul doesn't really care about that. He cares about structure. He cares about building churches. He cares about appointing bishops and deacons. He cares about establishing procedures for who's in charge and how decisions are made and how to handle internal disputes. This is not spirituality. This is institution building. This is creating a power structure. why does Paul get in trouble with the Jews? And why do the Romans always save him? In every confrontation, the pattern is the same. Jews accuse Paul. Romans protect Paul. Jews try to hurt Paul. Romans rescue Paul over and over. If Paul were just a religious teacher who happened to be be a Roman citizen, you might see this once, maybe twice, but it's a consistent pattern throughout his entire career. The Romans are always there to protect him. Always. That suggests something more than coincidence. That suggests coordination. To be fair, Christians do have an explanation. The Christian explanation is that Paul was part of God's divine plan. Jesus brought spiritual truth into the world. Jesus taught the way of salvation. But it was Paul who created the structure and organization that allowed Christianity to spread throughout the world. I'm not buying it, but nevertheless it is an explanation.
I'm going to make an analogy here with the McDonalds franchise, because I think could highlight something important. In the 1950s, McDonald's was one restaurant in California run by the McDonalds brothers. They had great hamburgers. They had a good system, but it was just one location. Then a man named Ray Kroc visited the restaurant and he saw the potential. He said to the brothers, "Let me scale this out. Let me create a franchise model. Let me convince other people to open McDonald's restaurants all across America and eventually the world.". And the brother said, "Okay.". And Ray Kroc became one of the greatest salesman in history. He drove everywhere. He held meetings. He convinced people. And because Ray Kroc was such an effective salesman, McDonald's became the largest restaurant empire in the world. The Christian narrative says it's the same with Paul. Jesus was a founder who had the true message. But Paul was a business manager who created the system that allow the message to spread. Jesus taught spiritual truth. Paul built an organization that could spread that truth to millions of people across the entire Roman Empire and eventually across the entire world. But here's a problem with this analogy. Jesus was not selling hamburgers. In fact, Jesus hated hamburgers. Metaphorically speaking, the central message of Jesus is that wealth is wrong, business is wrong, hierarchy is wrong, organization and power structures are corruptions of spiritual truth. What matters is a direct experience of the divine spark in your own heart. Jesus explicitly rejected the idea that you need intermediaries, you don't need priests, you don't need institutions, you don't need buildings, the kingdom of God is within you, it's accessible directly. So even though the Christian explanation is that Paul was Jesus's business manager, the problem is Jesus didn't want a business manager. Jesus believed that institutionalizing spirituality destroys it. Each person has to discover truth for themselves to their own inner journey.
So say many. All agree on following Jesus, then all diverge on what that means. The grammaticohistorical Jesus is the real Jesus, anything else is just imagination.
"The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21): Yes, Jesus taught the kingdom within.
"Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone" (Matt. 23:23): Yes, Jesus taught works.
"Thy faith hath saved thee" (Luke 7:50, 18:42): Jesus also taught faith.
"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9): Yes, Paul taught faith.
"The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost" (Rom. 14:17): Paul also taught the kingdom within.
"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 2:12): Paul also taught works.
I guess I'm not seeing the dichotomy. There is a difficulty for those who think messages of faith and works are in contradiction, but classical theology resolved the tension between James and Paul long ago.
That's not Paul, and Christians shouldn't teach it. Paul taught that they are judged innocent or guilty by the law found in their own hearts, Rom. 2:13-16, answering this exact objection in its original terms. Again, no dichotomy seen.
Sorry, Dot: "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me" (John 14:1). Nothing about following paths or ways turns up, but "I am the way" (John 14:6) and "Follow me" (18 times, including John 21:19). See, those are history texts that people accept about what he actually taught and they speak for themselves, and when you use their language to say something else it invites a question as to what is meant. On structure, I'll repeat my findings:
Same reason Peter, John, and the rest got in trouble with "the Jews" before and after Paul's activity. Those Jews who didn't believe Jesus didn't believe any of his apostles.
Now you're getting to the meat! Some McDonald's locations sell sludge where the McDonalds had sold high-quality beef. And some blame could be laid on Kroc for that. But in this analogy, the blame falls much more on a long train of deviations from Jesus, historically documented in all 21 centuries since. Jesus on earth did appoint managers, he gave different offices to the apostles and also had many front men and sales workers to prepare some of his appearances. Paul says that his visions of Jesus were of the same kind and appeals to them as proof that Jesus did want him as a manager (not of an organization but of an organism, the living bride). The test of that vision is in what Paul did, and historically what he did was not problematic on the fronts you describe when compared to the Medicis, say, as the first example to come to mind.
So I've read it all but I don't see it as a difference between Jesus and the received Paul figure. I see it as a difference between Jesus and churchianity, from the popes on down. I'm all for constructive criticism of Christianity and restoration of the true historical Jesus, because it never lets me down and it explains exactly when and where I run with or against the institutional churches.
It wasn't only James the Just. u/Thisisnotanexit And the issue was beyond "tension". But, of course you're free to believe anything you want to believe. IMO, a large number of jews in Jerusalem wanted to kill Paul for his teachings. Which were different than Jesus's teachings. Maybe you're not seeing the dichotomy, but I do. Maybe because I'm looking at the outcome in a different way than you do. So, with that in mind allow me to look at what Paul actually teaches and how each of his "innovations" directly undermines one of these three pillars of Jewish fanaticism. First pillar, purity. Purity means absolute obedience to the law of Moses. Purity means circumcision. Purity means dietary restrictions. Purity means Sabbath observance. Purity means not associating with Gentiles. Purity means indulging only marrying within the faith. But what does Paul say? Paul says circumcision doesn't matter. You don't need to be circumcised to be part of God's people. The law of Moses doesn't matter. What matters is faith in Jesus. The external signs don't matter. What matters is the inner belief. Now, why is circumcision such a big deal? jews know why. So many Jews simply stayed separate from mainstream civic life. This maintained Jewish distinctiveness, but it also isolated Jews from the networks of power and commerce and culture. Paul says, "You don't need to be circumcised.". And if you only be circumcised, then suddenly you can participate in gymnasium culture. You can network with Greeks and Romans. You can integrate into civic life. You're no longer visibly marked as separate. So Paul's message breaks down the barrier of purity. It makes assimilation possible. It allows Jews to become Roman while still claiming to maintain their faith.
Second pillar, persecution complex. Jews believe they're persecuted because they're God's chosen people. The world hates them for their righteousness. This creates intense group solidarity, us against the world. But Paul says, you're not being persecuted because you're righteous. You're being persecuted because you're not Roman citizens. Look at me. I'm a Roman citizen. And the Romans protect me. They don't persecute me. I can preach anything I want and no one touches me. So the solution isn't to resist Rome. The solution is to become Roman, get citizenship, participate in the system, then you have legal protection. Then you can practice your religion freely. The Romans don't care what you believe as long as you don't rebel. Paul's own life story becomes proof of this argument. He was persecuted by Jews, not by Romans. Romans saved him. Romans protected him. Romans gave him safe passage to Rome to appeal to the emperor.
Third pillar, the coming of the Messiah. Jews believe the Messiah will be a warrior king who will lead a military revolt against Rome and establish God's kingdom through violent conquest. But Paul says the Messiah has already come. He was Jesus. And Jesus didn't come to lead a military revolt. Jesus came to teach a message of love and forgiveness and spiritual transformation. Jesus had nothing against the Roman Empire. Jesus said, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesars's.". Jesus told people to turn the other cheek. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers.". So if the Messiah already came and his message was peace, not war, then waiting for a military messiah is foolish. That's not the plan. The plan is inner transformation, spiritual salvation, not political revolution.
I'm not trying to convince you of anything, like I said you're free to believe anything you want. But, at least acknowledge this is a very radical view about Paul you haven't heard before. That he is a spy working for the Roman empire. Why don't you look at the present. Today assimilated jews are disrespected just as much as goyim, if not more. Just ask any assimilated jew. Jews still believe they're persecuted because they're God's chosen people. And if say otherwise you're an antisemite, even if you are a jew. And how about Jewish fanaticism, just look at Chabad Lubavitch. Every day they're praying for the coming of the Moshiach. And then look at things from the Roman empire & Paul perspective. If they deal with these three things, then fanaticism disappears. If purity doesn't matter, then you can assimilate. If Roman citizenship protects you, then you don't need to resist. If the Messiah already came with a message of peace, then you're not waiting for a warrior king to lead you into battle. The theological framework completely neutralizes the political threat. This is Roman propaganda designed to make you weak, to make you surrender, to make you abandon the faith. But Paul's message wasn't targeted at fanatical Jews. They were still a minority. Paul's message was targeted at diaspora Jews like himself. Jews who were stuck between two worlds. Jews who had Greek fathers and Jewish mothers. Jews who wanted to participate in Roman society but felt guilt about compromising their traditions. Jews who were tired of being outsiders who wanted to belong. For these people, Paul's message was liberating. You can be Roman and Jewish. You can participate in civic life and still worship the God of Abraham.
IMO, Paul was cleaver. And I also believe he genuinely believed in his mission. His mission was to save his people. And from his perspective, the path the fanatics were taking led to destruction. Rebelling against Rome was suicide. Rome was the most powerful military force in world history. You cannot defeat them through armed resistance. All you do is get yourselves killed. If you want to survive, if you want to preserve Jewish life and culture, you have to adapt. You have to make compromises. You have to work within the Roman system, not against it. And look, there are advantages to Roman civilization. You can become prosperous. You can be educated. You can have security and stability. Roman peace brings benefits if you're willing to participate. So Paul's mission was assimilation but not assimilation that destroys Jewish identity. Assimilation that preserves a modified version of Jewish identity that's compatible with Roman power. In his own mind, Paul was a savior. He was saving the Jewish people from their own suicidal fanaticism. The irony is that to do this, he had to radically transform what it meant to be Jewish. He had to create a new religion that kept some Jewish elements but abandoned others. He had to make Judaism acceptable to Rome. And whether Paul realized or not, whether he intended it or not, he was doing exactly what Roman imperial interests required. And Romans continued with the Paul Project long after Saul of Taurus's death. If something works why fix it?
Yes, Jesus and Paul cut against much tradition, and aligned with much other tradition, just as the NT says.
Purity: Tradition understood there was natural law for all people (the Ten Commandments, the laws of Noah) and there were Mosaic laws specifically for the tribe of Jews (e.g. circumcision and kashrut and antimiscegentation). Tradition also admittedly added to Moses with commands about not associating with Gentiles (as well as candle-lighting, keeping Purim, and other things added at this time). Jesus taught and kept Mosaic purity and taught that the disciples' righteousness should exceed that of the Pharisees (emphasizing that it cannot be done by mere human effort). Paul said very specifically how he applied these first two bodies of law (Noah and Moses) and how he didn't always follow the third body (oral tradition). "And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; to them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law" (1 Cor. 9:20-21). This is standard rabbinical paradox, meaning two senses apply. He is under the law to (of) Christ and so he can operate "as" under the law; and he is also free from all human law (19) so he can operate "as" without law. This is the meaning of neither circumcision nor uncircumcision mattering, it's the teaching of Christian liberty to judge all things. When Paul defended himself before the Romans, according to Luke, he claimed not to have offended the law of Moses in the slightest (Acts 22:3, 24:14, 25:8); he also prepared for this, at the counsel of representatives of myriads of Torah-observant Messianic Jews, by paying for sacrifices to be offered, which they hoped would prove "that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law" (Acts 21:24). So it's not open-and-shut to say that, even though Paul (and the whole Jerusalem Council of Acts 15) agreed on not putting laws of Moses forcibly upon Gentiles, he thereby had anything against the law; in fact, to say so agrees with his Jewish accusers, who also persecuted all the other proto-Christians before Paul. I showed you that Paul preaching faith in Jesus was the same as Jesus preaching it. But Paul never preached to Jews not to circumcise their children to gain Greco-Roman networking power; the Hellenists did that, but Paul aligned with the Torah-observant ("many thousands of Jews there are which believe; and they are all zealous of the law", 21:20). There was never a message of allowing Jews to become Roman and not Jewish, it wasn't ever a Jewish concept.
Persecution: I wouldn't describe this as a complex in the first place; it was more, unique role requires special resignation about suffering. Paul (who was tried and executed by Rome) just didn't preach a message of Romanism saving anyone, nor did he do anything to distract from Jesus's message of crossbearing, but perpetuated it. Under house arrest by Rome for two years, he didn't preach citizenship; he preached salvation of God to Jew and Gentile, the kingdom of God, and the lordship of Jesus Christ (Acts 28:28-31). I don't see evidence for your idea that he taught Hellenism. Now, Philo of Alexandria taught Hellenism, but I know of no historical linkage to Saul of Tarsus. (Greek Philo and his Hebrew name Yedidyah mean "beloved"; Latin Paulus means "small".)
Messianism: Have looked into this recently and can say, the development of messianism in the centuries before Jesus was not monolithic. Daniel, Enoch, the apocrypha, and the Mishna make clear that there were tensions among many messianic pictures floating in the culture. He might arise suddenly or be born in Israel and quietly grow up Jewish; he might be supernatural or very human; he might destroy the evil empire or he might be utterly cut off by them; he might suffer for his people or he might deliver them victoriously. There was no single notion of warrior-king "only" at this time (it was only much later that Jews pushing back against Christians played that side up and played the suffering side down). For instance, Ps. 110, quoted so often in Jesus's time, emphasized both victory, and a repose where the Messiah sits patiently at God's righthand until the time comes for him to demonstrate peace by drinking freely from the brook. It was a deliberate paradoxical teaching and the people who were honest admitted that, which is why many couldn't determine if Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus said he would bring a sword at the right time, and John saw the same, but that his immediate purpose was to build a community founded on Peter's confession of the Messiah. His clever teachings were more ambiguous about Rome than people think: render Caesar's image to Caesar, but man is God's image and cannot be rendered to Caesar; and turning another cheek to a striker publicly shames the striker for his injustice just as going the second mile shames the Roman soldier who demands the first one under color of law. Again, both Paul and Jesus preach the same Messiah, the epitome of love who will yet crush rebellion at the right time and deliver all creation in a final reconciliation.
Parts I haven't heard, yes. But that's because the evidence doesn't point most people there. How far could I go with it? Perhaps Paul's citizenship led him to desire a chief gatekeeper position in the Messianic sect, but it didn't make good Roman citizens in his day because he and the other apostles led many myriads to go to martyrdom rejecting the Roman gods. Rome hated Jews and Christians equally for the same reason, as Tacitus shows. So is he just infiltrating to remove a message of gnosis that would take primitive Christianity in another direction? That appears plain from his calling it pseudognosis, but it doesn't mean his track is Roman (in fact Rom. 16 shows how big the Roman church was before he ever arrived, and it just kept getting more a thorn in Rome's side). So can we find a message of gnosis that was suppressed? A little bit, but it wasn't taught by Jesus or any apostle as such. They didn't have a problem with gnosis, they had a problem with apostasy (separatism, standing against), as John says. It's just that gnostics so often formed separatist schools; those who didn't had schools that were accepted and integrated, notably Montanus. And it was centuries before a long series of compromises allowed the Christian system to be coopted by Rome, so Paul's contributions to offer concessions to Gentiles (never to Jews) were only one of many steps in that direction.
You do offer a rationale that current political Judaism would be appealed to by a Hellenizing message. As one who's studied the current situation, I take a different approach, going back to Jesus's words that the Pharisee types should do even more than they do. They should strive for Mosaic purity so much more that they realize it can't be done except supernaturally (as Jesus and gnostics both agree). They should be willing so much more to suffer that they risk their comfort zone of associations with other Jews and begin to step out of their entire safety net, as so many Messianic Jews have done who have been disowned by family and culture alike. They should be so much more demanding of "Moshiach Now!" that they bring him into their hearts where he's always wanted to reign the most. That is their salvation within their own system much more than Hellenization could ever be. Yes, Philo's message is still a draw for many secular Jews today, but it's not real Judaism and it's not their destiny. They should become more risky and unpredictable because Jesus's followers are known for turning the world upside down, and that's a threat to the state that can never be undone. Resistance is futile: statism will be assimilated. Not by dead organization, but by a living organism.
Paul ensured one such was circumcised, Timothy; he never preached Hellenism. It was only the Jerusalem Council en masse that continued Judaism by affirming that there was no pressure on Gentiles to be proselytized, or not to be.
I will grant that Rom. 13 preaches acceptance of the powers that be (Jewish or Gentile), insofar as conscience permits, while Peter and John made the conscience factor much more explicit in Acts 4-5. But even in Rom. 13 Paul appeals back to Jesus's statement of rendering unto Caesar, which as I pointed out creates a perfect delineation: powers have the right to claim taxes but not the right to claim your conscience, which is God's possession. Timothy Baldwin points out in detail that this passage is not a suicide pact with Rome but a recognition that peaceful civil disobedience is limited to true appeals to conscience. So even there I don't see that Paul's demarcation was different from Jesus's cagey one. You note "Jesus had nothing against the Roman Empire", but then you appear to fault Paul for having nothing against the Empire either.
So it's a very interesting case, and I'd be happy to look at any neglected aspects. I'm not seeing a historical narrative in which Paul's contribution to Christianity is the problem, or in which some other contribution was unduly silenced. The judgment against any gnostic teaching was always local over the entire gnostic period and not targeted against a gnostic position in general; and Christians accepted many texts on gnosis that were nonbelligerent, such as the wonderful Odes of Solomon, the Shepherd of Hermas, of course the Gospel of Thomas, etc. The only reason these faded is that they didn't have the staying power that Christians saw in the books that they eventually approved as canonical. I have every respect for your proposal that there is more to look at, but when it comes to your motivation narrative for Paul it sounds like you're just assuming Philo's motives onto him even though they don't appear in the Pauline corpus. Sure there were many Hellenists in the Philo school, many Alexandrians, but they were strongly quashed from 66 on, and they were only later represented by Athenians who carried the Hellenist trend in their place, i.e. Athenagoras and Clement. The Alexandrian school was always a distinct movement from the Jerusalem and Rome movements in Christianity. So I just continue not to see a fit of your narrative to the facts about Philo and Paul, even granting the best hypotheticals to you.