Paul of Tarsus, born at the beginning of the Iis century and died around 67, is known for his epistles which established certain foundations of Christian theology. These texts, prior to the Gospels, have fascinated many thinkers (Augustine, Luther, Nietzsche, Heidegger, etc.). Likewise, his face, shrouded in mystery, still intrigues today.
How do Paul’s Jewishness, his Greek culture and his Christian faith fit together? What relationship does it have with philosophy? Of what nature is the wisdom that Paul proposes to bring to the world? In Saint Paul and philosophy. An introduction to the essence of Christianity (PUF, 250 pages, 22 euros), Olivier Boulnois, director of studies at the Ecole pratique des hautes études (Paris), specialist in medieval philosophy, sees in the “apostle of the Gentiles” a paradoxical incarnation of the essence of Christianity.
You write that your work aims to define the “essence” of Christianity. In what sense should this word be understood?
Olivier Boulnois: I propose to read Paul as an introduction, a path to Christianity, among others. By speaking of the “essence of Christianity”, I try to approach the heart of Christianity from a key figure in its origin, Paul of Tarsus. But above all I would not like to present the system of Christian doctrine. It is not a question of defining Christianity “from above”, based on its dogmas and its history. It is about understanding Christianity as a form of life.
Here, the essence of Christianity is “being a Christian”: what is the essence of Christian existence? What difference does it make for a Jew of the Iis century and for its correspondents, to believe in Jesus-Messiah? How does this change his relationship to the world, to others and to himself? What concept of time, of logos, of man does this imply?
By taking Paul as a starting point, a Judean of Greek culture, you assume the paradoxical character of such an essence…
Absolutely. We tend to read Paul a posteriori, anachronistically: since Christianity emerged as a separate religion from paganism and Judaism, we interpret Paul as if he were neither Jewish nor Greek. But it is quite the opposite: Paul is through and through Jewish and Greek. Paul is simply a Jew who adheres to the Messiah, a “messianist” (this is the meaning of the Greek Christians).
He wrote before Christianity broke away from Judaism. Of course, by justifying the integration of Greeks into the community, he contributes to this separation. But he doesn’t know. If Paul and the first apostles are Jews, the heart of the Christian being, the center of Christianity, is not in itself: it is in Judaism.
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