The Rationale for Universalism

The Apostle Paul

Prologue

It's a strange thing. For a very long time now, this personality – along with Mallarmé, Cantor, Archimedes, Plato, Robespierre, Conrad... (not to mention our century) — accompanies me. Fifteen years ago I wrote a play, An Incident in Antioch, and its heroine was called Paula. However, the change of sex did not complicate the obvious identification too much.

Paul is indeed not an apostle or a saint to me. I have only spoken of the message that he brings, and the worship to which he is doomed. He is a subjective figure, and a figure of primary importance. I have always read the Epistles as one rereads the classics we know well: the road is beaten, the details are erased, and the strength is not squandered. In the Epistles there is no transcendence for me, nothing sacred. This book in itself is absolutely equal to all the others; Another thing is that it touches me personally. It's just that a certain person with a confident hand has written down these phrases, these passionate and tender messages, and we are drawn to address them without any reverence or disgust. In addition, I was brought up in a family that was not at all religious (even my grandparents on both sides, as schoolteachers, strove to rise above clerical vileness) and became acquainted rather late with the curious texts of the epistles, the poetry of which is amazing.

Deep down, I never connected Paul with religion. He has always interested me not in this tone, not for the sake of testifying in favor of any faith or anti-faith. To tell the truth, I was no more religiously fascinated by him than by Pascal, Kierkegaard, or Claudel. In addition, in their Christian preaching there was a desire for clarity. In any case, the cauldron in which what later became the book of art and thought was seething was overflowing with an inexplicable mixture: it contained delusions, beliefs, labyrinths of childhood attractions, all kinds of perversions, inseparable memories, all kinds of interpretations, considerable nonsense and fantasies. Immersion in this chemistry was of little use.

For me, Pavel is first of all a thinker-poet of what is happening. At the same time, he is the one who embodies, formulates the inalienable features, so to speak, of a militant figure. It establishes an interdependence (wholly human, the interweaving of which, I confess, fascinates me) between the general idea of a breakthrough, a collision, and the idea of thought-practice, which is nothing but the subjective materiality of this breakthrough.

And if I feel the need to describe at least in general terms the peculiarity of this interdependence established by Paul, it is precisely because today it shows us its ultimate work in all directions, because today it is looking for a new militant figure to replace the previous one. In her place at the beginning of this century, Lenin and the Bolsheviks were visible, and it can be said that at that time she was a figure of a party activist. Today, when the task of taking a step forward is on the agenda, it is possible to take a big step back to achieve this goal, at least to look back. For this, I believe, we should turn to Paul. I am not the first to dare to compare him with Lenin (whose Christ was the dubious Marx).

My goals are neither historical nor exegetical in nature. At the same time, I have strictly adhered to Paul's texts, verified by modern scholars, and strictly correlated my conclusions with them.

For the Greek original, I used the Novum Testament Graese, a critical edition of Nestle-Aland, in Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993.

As the main French text, I have repeatedly revised Le Noveau TestamentLouis Segond, in the Trinitarian Bible Society, 1993 edition.

In referring to the epistles, I have followed the traditional arrangement of chapters and verses. Thus, the designation Romans 1:25 means the Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1, verse 25. The same designations were used for other epistles: Gal. —for Galatians, 1 Cor. and 2 Cor. — for the two Epistles to the Corinthians, Phil — for the Epistle to the Philippians, 1 Thess. —for the First Epistle to the Thessalonians.

For those who wish to study this topic on their own, I would nevertheless point to two works (taking into account the colossal bibliography relating to Paul). These are a good book by Stanislas Breton, Saint Paul (PUF, 1988) and a book by Gunther Bornkamm, Rail, àrotre de Jesus-Christ (French translation by Lore Janneret, Labor & Fide, Genève, 1971).

Catholic and Protestant. Let them make a triangle together with an atheist!