The Rapture of Apostle Paul
With the kind permission of Fr Dr Maximos Constas, below is an excerpt from his chapter “The Reception of Paul and Pauline Theology in the Byzantine Period” in D. Krueger & R. S. Nelson (eds), The New Testament in Byzantium (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection), 147–76. The Paul of modern biblical studies, and to a significant extent of the modern Christian imagination, is a figure that has been largely constructed in the wake of the Reformation. Justification by faith, the mutual exclusivity of law and gospel, a radical doctrine of original sin and predestination, the repudiation of natural theology, and an opposition between faith and liturgical worship are among the predominant features of Paul as he appears in Wittenberg and Geneva. But there is another Paul, who, though relegated to the margins of modern biblical scholarship, stands at the very centre of the Byzantine exegetical and theological tradition. The Byzantine portrait of Paul places in