Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination
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Behold! Now my father opens up heaven
and summons me.
Father, here I come. (Herc. Ot. 1725; my translation)
Then, to the surprise of the bystanders, Hercules transcends death. While the mourners were lamenting over him, he appears to them from above and speaks to them from the skies (Herc. Ot. 1940). Hercules lets his loved ones know that he has not remained with the shades as they presumed. Rather, he conquered the grave and triumphed over hell. They should no longer weep for him because his virtue has borne him to the gods. Deathless and divine, the mighty conqueror and bringer of peace made a triumphal entrance into heaven (Herc. Ot. 1980–1990).
Summary
This section has summarized the themes of the transcendence of death and heavenly ascent in three stories representative of Stoicism. As demonstrated above, the authors drew upon the legends of Hercules, Scipio, and Er to show that “biological life is not the highest form of experience for which human beings can hope.”[53] Rather, the pious will go to heaven when they die. Whereas Metilius and Hercules give an example of a celestial ascent after death, Scipio’s rapture is the anticipation of that ascent.[54] Despite these differences, the composite is that virtuous souls ascend to heaven when they die, where the saints guide them into the mysteries of the universe, which include the particulars about the future all the way up to the conflagration. Wicked souls, on the contrary, will be dreadfully punished.
Paul’s Apocalyptic Eschatology in Light of the Stoics
In this section, my aim is to show how the key features of Stoic apocalyptic surveyed above relate to elements in Paul’s letters. No preformed definition of “Pauline apocalyptic” is adopted in this essay; rather, the Stoic sources have the primary control here in defining apocalyptic. The hope is that by letting the Stoic texts drive the discussion, light can be shed on the content of apocalyptic and how those Stoic concepts relate to Paul’s theology, including where their respective worldviews overlap and contrast. I will focus on the following themes: (A) heavenly ascents, (B) hidden mysteries, (C) temporary sufferings, (D) life after death, (E) intermediate states, and (F) post-mortem judgment and reward.
Heavenly Ascent
Similar to the aforementioned authors’ references to Er, Scipio, Metilius, and Hercules, Paul recounts the story of a “man in Christ”[55] who was caught up to heaven (2 Cor. 12:1–4).[56] Along the lines of the experiences of Scipio and Er, the heavenly ascent of this man provides a mere foretaste of the heavenly world[57] and stands over against those of Metilius and Hercules, who never returned from heaven.[58] Moreover, whereas Scipio gazed upon the nine spheres of heaven—the last of which was the abode of God (Cicero, Resp. 6.17)—Paul’s man was raptured to the third heaven[59] and experienced a revelation in Paradise.[60] In response to Paul’s ascent story, the Stoics might have wondered if Paradise referred to a location in the third heaven,[61] or if it was similar to the highest heaven that Scipio saw.[62] If the former, why did the man in Christ fail to go all the way?[63] In contrast to Hercules’s triumphant entry into heaven, did the man trip up somehow? Even if he did stumble, was the man in Christ—like Scipio—at least able to gaze upon the heaven of the Supreme God from a distance?
Moreover, since Paul is unsure whether or not the experience was in the body,[64] the Stoics might question if the man in Christ’s revelation was more like Scipio’s dream,[65] or more akin to Er’s “near-death” experience.[66] If the latter, perhaps this man’s rapture was a result of one of the “many deaths” mentioned in 2 Cor. 11:23.[67] Paul is certain about one thing, however. The man in Christ cannot repeat what he heard while he was in Paradise.[68] Over against the purpose of Scipio’s vision, then, Paul’s revelation reveals nothing.[69] The Stoics would likely have expressed frustration with the apostle’s oxymoronic “inexpressible words” (ἄρρητα ῥήματα),[70] as well as with his lack of details.[71] For, while their ascent stories sought to satisfy people’s spiritual hunger for eschatological and astronomical secrets,[72] Paul’s account merely whets the appetite.[73]
Further, whereas Scipio and Metilius both had celestial guides to help them, Paul makes no mention of such a figure.[74] Is it because there was no one to interpret the experience for him that the man in Christ cannot divulge the details? Or perhaps there was an unmentioned helper there who forbade the man in Christ to share what he heard.[75] Either way, the Stoics would likely assume in light of their own sources that Paul’s vision related information about cosmography, the future events of kingdoms, the end of the world, and instructions regarding how to obtain everlasting life.[76]
Of course, in the context of 2 Corinthians, Paul uses the ascent story to counter his Jewish-Christian opponents who appealed to their own revelations to validate their apostolic authority. Paul therefore downplays the rapture in order to establish the true nature of apostleship.[77] The super-apostles pursued ecstatic experiences for personal validation, and the Stoics appealed to heavenly ascents to argue for the transcendence of death.[78]But Paul did not need his ascent story for that either! In the face of the super-apostles and over against the Stoic philosophers, the legitimacy of Paul’s ministry and the promise of immortality were found not in the man in Christ’s ascension, but in Christ’s resurrection—through which, according to the apostle, the hidden wisdom of God had already been disclosed (1 Cor. 2:7).
Hidden Mysteries
Both Paul and the Stoics consider the saints as understanding cosmic mysteries. The Stoics, however, reserve the understanding of the divine plans for those who had already journeyed to heaven (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). Paul, on the contrary, proclaims to all believers God’s mysteries decreed before the ages (1 Cor. 2:6–7). Over against the wise philosophers, the apostle’s churches already understand these mysteries because they have the Spirit of God and the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 1:18–23; 2:6–16).[79] In contrast to the Stoics, for Paul, the secret concerns how the risen Christ conquered Satan, sin, and death.[80]
Nevertheless, the Stoics would likely see the commonalities of the death, victory, and ascension of God’s Son with their own understanding of Hercules, Jupiter’s virtuous offspring. Similar to Jesus, Hercules—“the mighty conqueror” and “bringer of peace”—did not shrink at death, but defeated the grave by rising triumphantly to join his Father in heaven. In contrast to Hercules’s incorporeal ascent, however, Jesus’ bodily resurrection inaugurated the new age. The Stoics, of course, have nothing strictly comparable to this. In fact, with respect to Christ’s initiation of the coming age, the Stoics would agree with the apostle that to the “wise” his revelations seem quite absurd—absolute μωρία (1 Cor. 1:18–30).
Temporary Sufferings
Like the Stoics who were constrained to their bodies, believers are beleaguered with afflictions. In fact, Paul’s churches will share in Christ’s sufferings until Christ returns (Rom. 8:15–16). Nevertheless, similar to Africanus’s assessment that life on Earth is death compared to the glorious life in heaven, Paul proclaims that the church’s momentary afflictions lead to everlasting glory (2 Cor. 4:17). Moreover, like Seneca’s promise of Metilius’s post-mortem relief from sin and pain, Paul ensures believers that their present sufferings are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed (Rom. 8:18). This research underscores one critical difference: while the Stoics looked forward to their reward at the moment of their death, the believers’ hope centered more on the day of their resurrection. This insight leads us to the next point of comparison.
Life After Death
Both Paul and the Stoics endorse a transcendence of death where righteous people attain a higher form of life after they die.[81] Further, both base this belief on an ascent story. The Stoics draw their understandings of the soul’s afterlife from the myth of Er, the dream of Scipio, and the apotheosis of Hercules. Paul, on the contrary, bases his belief in the future resurrection of believers on the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:20).[82] Since believers have been buried with Christ by baptism into his death (Ro
m. 6:1–11), they have the certainty that they will be united with him in resurrection.
Similar to the hopes of Scipio and Metilius, soon enough, the believers will see their departed loved ones again (1 Thess. 4:14). At the parousia, the dead in Christ will rise from the grave and dash to the sky (1 Thess. 4:13–14).[83] Then, the remaining believers will follow them to meet the Messiah in the air (1 Thess. 4:17). Paul later explains that the Spirit will give life to believers’ mortal bodies (Rom. 8:11), which will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor. 15:51–52). Therefore, over against the Stoics’ portrayals of apotheoses of individuals at their deaths, Paul depicts an imminent mass “theosis” at the final resurrection.[84] This highlights how—in contrast to the Stoics—Paul’s concern for the individual is “indissolubly linked with the history of salvation as a whole.”[85]
Intermediate States
Similar to Scipio’s desire to depart to be with his father in heaven, Paul confesses that he would rather be away from the body so that he could be with the Lord. Whereas Scipio resolves to stay for the sake of the Republic,[86] the apostle realizes that it is necessary for him to remain in his body for the benefit of the church (Phil. 1:23). While the Stoics provide particulars regarding the state of righteous souls leading up to the ekpyrosis, the apostle never goes into detail regarding the condition of deceased believers leading up to the parousia.[87] Paul does say, however, that to die is gain and to depart from life is to be with Christ (Phil. 1:21–23). Furthermore, as long as a believer is at home in the body, she is away from the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6).[88]
Since Stoics went into detail concerning the blissful state of souls in heaven, they might want to know more about what Paul means when he says to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. For example, once Paul dies, will he—like Hercules—enter victoriously into heaven once for all? Like Scipio, will he be present with his loved ones who died before him? Like Metilius, will he see the events of the future and uncover all the secrets of the cosmos?
Post-mortem Judgment and Reward
For both the Stoics and Paul, “present experience and future hope were intrinsically connected and mutually interdependent.”[89] As with Scipio and Er, Paul seeks to live virtuously because he believes everyone will give an account for their actions done in the body (Rom. 14:10–12; 2 Cor. 5:9–10). According to Paul, the Messiah will bring to light what is hidden in darkness, expose the motives of human hearts (1 Cor. 4:5), and judge people’s secret thoughts (Rom. 2:16).[90]
Like the Stoics, Paul reserves the heavenly rewards for the righteous and warns of post-mortem judgment for the impious. As we saw above, however, the Stoics had accounts of the intermediate state of the wicked: unjust souls would be tormented until they were purified or perpetually tortured until the next conflagration. Conversely, Paul does not mention a double resurrection,[91] or give specifics with respect to the depraved souls who have deceased. To be sure, he declares that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom, that God’s wrath is already being revealed from heaven upon the ungodly, and that divine ruin will soon sweep them away (1 Cor. 6:9–11; Rom. 1:17–18; 1 Thess. 5:3). But what about the wicked who had already departed? Did Paul come closer to considering them as incarcerated in the abyss for a thousand years like in the Myth of Er? Or, as in Scipio’s dream, does Paul believe that the unrighteous are being constrained to the Earth and tormented for many ages? On the contrary, perhaps the apostle considered the wicked souls as mere shades dwelling in the infernal realm as mentioned in Hercules Oetaeus.[92]
Summary
In this comparison, I have highlighted parallels in the writings of the Stoics and Paul to accentuate the differences with respect to heavenly ascents, hidden mysteries, temporary sufferings, life after death, intermediate states, and post-mortem judgment and reward. One overall distinction revealed is how scant of detail Paul’s apocalyptic eschatology is compared to the lavish particulars found in the heavenly visions, journeys, and revelations of the Stoics. Therefore, Paul is not only bereft of details in comparison to other Jewish works, as others note, but also, in comparison with those represented in Stoic writings. Furthermore, many of the apocalyptic eschatological components spelled out in other Jewish ascent stories—such as the motif of fear, warnings of universal destruction, and details about celestial guides—appear in Stoic texts, but not in Paul. This is all the more remarkable if one considers apocalyptic eschatology as “the mother of all [Pauline] theology.”[93]
Conclusion
This chapter has been an attempt to join Engberg-Pedersen in going beyond the Judaism/Hellenism divide in the area of apocalyptic eschatology. Since many of those who heard Paul preach and participated in his churches would have been quite familiar with Stoic cosmology, I have explored the motifs of the transcendence of death and heavenly ascent in three writings representative of this dominant first-century philosophy. By surveying Scipio’s dream, Metilius’s ascent, and Hercules’s apotheosis and comparing them with various themes found in Paul’s letters, I sought to show that Paul’s apocalyptic eschatology has many features in common with Stoicism. In fact, in view of the parallels and widespread popularity of Stoicism, one might imagine how an undiscerning first-century bystander could prima facie mistake the two worldviews.[94]
Yet, our comparison has revealed not only striking similarities between Paul and the Stoics, but critical differences as well.[95] Unsurprisingly, many of the features that make Paul’s worldview different from Stoicism are quite at home in Judaism.[96] This might make it tempting for scholars to bypass the Stoic parallels in order to concentrate on more commensurate texts from Jewish traditions, as the majority of scholarship has done. Nonetheless, scholars should continue to push beyond the Judaism/Hellenism divide so as not to focus on one background to the exclusion of others. As David Aune notes, Paul’s theology is “a creative combination of Jewish and Hellenistic traditions transformed into a tertium quid”—which, although related to these two traditions, transcends them both.[97]
This study also raises, as a byproduct, important questions about how and why the writings of a Jewish apostle resonate so deeply with Stoic philosophy. As a man of many worlds, Paul was, of course, as Timothy Brookins explains, “capable of shifting between them as the rhetorical situation demanded.”[98] But do the influences run deeper than rhetorical pragmatism? Indeed, how many of the resonances occur due to Paul’s tendency to employ rhetorical forms used in Stoic authors as well as his occasional penchant to express “his message in figures common among the Stoics”?[99] How many of them ensue from genuine agreements with the conceptual world of the Stoics?[100] And how many appear due to Stoic influence on Jewish thought?[101] Whatever the case, these questions invite more comparisons between Paul and Stoicism as well as explorations into the origin of the apostle’s thought world.
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T. S. Eliot, Collected Plays (London: Faber and Faber, 1962), 174. ↵
Once scholars use this term in relation to Paul’s letters, they are using it in an extended sense. See John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 34–71. On the relationship between apocalyptic and eschatology, see Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 70–72; Adela Yarbro Collins, Cosmology and Eschatology in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism, JSJSup 50 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 6. ↵
Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 36–53. ↵
See J. Gwyn Griffiths, “Apocalyptic in the Hellenistic Era,” Walter Burkert, “Apokalyptik im frühen Griechentum: Impulse und Transformationen,” and Morton Smith, “On the History of APOKALUPTW and APOKALUYIS,” each in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. David Hellholm (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 15–17, 235–54, 273–93 (respectively); James Buchanan Wallace, Snatched into Paradise (2 Cor. 12:1-10): Paul’s Heavenly Journey in the Context of Early Christi
an Experience, BZNW 179 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011). ↵
Harold W. Attridge, “Greek and Latin Apocalypses,” Semeia 14 (1979): 159–86. ↵
F. Gerald Downing, “Cosmic Eschatology in the First Century,” L'Antiquité Classique 64 (1995): 99–109; idem, “Common Strands in Pagan, Jewish and Christian Eschatologies in the First Century,” TZ 51, no. 3 (1995): 196–211; Stanley, E. Porter, “Resurrection, the Greeks and the New Testament,” in Resurrection, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Michael A. Hayes, and David Tombs (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 52–81. ↵
James D. Tabor, Things Unutterable (Latham, MD: University Press of America, 1986); Alan F. Segal, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and their Environment,” in ANRW II 23.2, ed. Wolfgang Haase (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980), 1334–88. ↵
David E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977), xiii. See also A. A. Long, Hellenistic Philosophy (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974), 107, 232; J. Albert Harrill, “Stoic Physics, The Universal Eschatological Destruction of the ‘Ignorant and Unstable’ in 2 Peter,” in Stoicism and Early Christianity, ed. Tuomas Rasimus, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Ismo Dunderberg (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2010), 115–40. ↵
N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 1:218, 2:1384. See also David A. deSilva, “Paul and the Stoa: A Comparison,” JETS 38, no. 4 (1995): 549–64; J. N. Sevenster, Paul and Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 240. ↵